David Ellsworth installation of 20 works at the Philadelphia Art Museum (Gallery 129), along with ceramic giant, the late Rudolf Staffel.
Curated by Elizabeth Agra, Curator of Decorative Arts.
Open now, runs through August 20, 2017.
More information at Philadelphia Art Museum http://www.philamuseum.org/visit/
CraftSchools.us launches new podcast series
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is excited to announce the launch of “Make/Time” – a new podcast series created by CraftSchools.us. The podcast is a project of “The Craft School Experience” an initiative that promotes the value of immersive, residential craft schools across the country.
CraftSchools.us is a consortium of five U.S. craft schools promoting the craft school experience on a national scale. Through their efforts, they explore the values, communities and opportunities that join them as a movement of immersive, residential schools teaching a variety of craft disciplines. Members of CraftSchools.us include: Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Crafts, Peters Valley School of Craft and Pilchuck Glass School.
“Make/Time” explores fine craft, inspiration and the creative process through interviews with established craft artists from across the field. The first three interviews feature artists from varying disciplines and experiences. Tom Joyce: sculptor and MacArthur Fellow known for his architectural work and large public sculptures in forged steel; Tim McCreight: jeweler, writer, and publisher who has begun an innovative program with West African jewelers; Sonya Clark: artist and head of the Craft and Material Studies Program at Virginia Commonwealth University, whose work in textiles often addresses issues of race in America. Podcasts are available at www.craftschools.us/podcast.
“Arrowmont is pleased to help sponsor these podcasts which explore the work and thought of important artists,” says Bill May, Arrowmont’s executive director. “All of those interviewed have unique perspectives on the value of working creatively with materials to explore concerns both personal and public.”
The series is hosted by Stuart Kestenbaum – former director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, ME, 1988 – 2015. He is author of four books of poems, most recently Only Now and The View From Here, brief essays on craft, community, and the creative process. Kestenbaum is an honorary fellow of the American Craft Council and is currently the Poet Laureate of the State of Maine.
“Having conversations with leading and emerging craft artists gives me the opportunity to dig deeply behind the scenes,” says Kestenbaum. “Every episode gives us a special look at the person behind the work, their ideas and the inspiration that helps them achieve excellence in this field.”
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is a national art education center. The school enriches lives by developing aesthetic appreciation and fostering self-expression with hands-on experiences in a variety of media, classes, conferences and seminars. On the leading edge of arts education, Arrowmont utilizes contemporary and fine arts techniques to build upon a foundation of traditional arts and crafts.
Contact:
Laura Tuttle 865.436.5860 ex.29
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts
556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738
865.436.5860
BIZ COMMUNITY: Uplifting communities through woodwork (08/17/2016)
The 2016 Working with Wood Show, in association with the Association of Woodturners South Africa (AWSA), will be held at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) George Campus from 26-28 August.
The event aims to focus on the upliftment of surrounding communities through woodwork. Besides the myriad wood- and timber-related products, skills and machinery on display, the event’s main aim is to reawaken interest in carpentry.
Uplifting communities through woodwork
With this in mind, the American Association of Woodturners’ (AAW) board, on invitation of AWSA, will launch two of their outreach initiatives, Turners without Borders (TWB) and Women in Turning (WIT), during the event.
TWB in the Garden Route
The key to the success of a TWB initiative is to locate the project in a community where there is an existing support base. Based on global experience, it has been decided to establish the first South African pilot project for TWB in the Garden Route. The pilot sites identified are in the Karatara district, in partnership with Tsiba (Tertiary School in Business Administration), and in George, together with the NMMU campus, in partnership with the School of Natural Resource Management (wood technology).
In support of the initiative, Garden Route-based experienced woodturners have agreed to provide mentoring to members of the community throughout their journey to acquiring woodturning skills.
AAW launched TWB three years ago. Through this initiative they have transferred woodturning skills to deprived communities in several countries such as Mexico, Puerta Rico, China and India. Through their newly acquired skills in woodturning and making use of the local supply of wood, members of these communities have been able to develop local economies and in so doing have been able uplift themselves.
Last year, the AAW agreed to bring the TWB programme to South Africa and have committed to sponsor Carmen de la Paz, an international DIY icon, to South Africa to launch the TWB initiative. In agreeing to support this initiative, the AAW further agreed to look at a partnering model with the AWSA.
Women in Turning (WIT) project
In parallel with the TWB project, AWSA will be launching the Women in Turning (WIT) project in recognition that globally, women are in the top rankings of woodturners. A move away from traditional male-domination has been noticed, with women making their mark in the industry and many of them finding new meaning for themselves. Among other drivers, the WIT project will be designed to generate income to expand the TWB project to other regions in South Africa.
Because of De la Paz’ passion and commitment to the development of those less fortunate, she has committed both her time and personal funds to the launch of this project in South Africa during the Working with Wood Show.
The AWSA symposium will run throughout the Working with Wood Show. Besides the many woodturning lectures, the Working with Wood team are offering three days of woodworking demonstrations and workshops at no charge.
Entry to the Working with Wood Show is R20 per adult and no charge for children under 12.
For more information on the show, email fran@out-there.co.za and for information about the symposium, email alex@circumference.co.za.
Woodcraft donation helps youth learn to turn at American Association of Woodturners International Symposium.
Woodcraft and other industry and individual sponsors helped 41 young people learn woodturning at the American Association of Woodturners International Symposium held in Atlanta in June. Woodcraft donated 25 face shields for the program.
Five well-known woodturners instructed the youth at the 2016 symposium in turning wood into yo-yos, ice cream scoops, Christmas ornaments, candlesticks, garden trowels, spinning tops, ring holders and vases. In addition to their turned pieces, 25 youth took home a complete turning package that included a mini lathe with stand, face shield, chuck, tool turning set plus two other turning tools, and a safety drive. Winners were chosen in a drawing of names of youth who participated in at least one youth turning rotation.
According to Jeff Brockett, chair of the symposium, the youth program was born when AAW members saw the need for hands-on opportunities for youth. “They made the decision to start the Youth Training Program in an attempt to get young people interested in the craft of woodturning.”
The Youth Program has been part of the symposium since 2005 and is open to youth 10-18 who have a registered adult attending the symposium. There are 8-10 class rotations, and youth can register for two. There is no limit to the number of participants, and no prior woodturning experience is required. Turned pieces created by the youth are displayed in the youth turning area and in the AAW Instant Gallery.
“Support for the AAW Youth Program fits perfectly into Woodcraft’s ongoing efforts to provide educational opportunities and one-on-one guidance to woodworkers of all skill levels,” president Jody Garrett said. “Woodcraft is pleased to be part of this program that encourages young people to learn woodturning.”
Since the AAW Youth Program began, Woodcraft has donated almost 300 face shields, which are used for the classes and the turning packages. “There is an increased emphasis on instilling a strong safety attitude with these young woodturners, and a face shield is a critical part of what we like to send home with them,” Brockett said.
Woodcraft also supported another program held in connection with the symposium – the Lighthouse for the Blind Program designed to give the visually impaired an opportunity to participate in a hands-on rotation.
“A local visually impaired program is identified in the symposium host city,” Brockett said. “Local volunteers assist with getting a turning program up and running after the symposium. The local Lighthouse for the Blind program receives one complete turning package from AAW.” The Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ABVI) in Atlanta was selected to participate in the 2016 symposium. Woodcraft provided a face shield for the turning package given to ABVI.
For more about the American Association of Woodturners, visit http://www.woodturner.org.
To learn more about Woodcraft, please contact the store nearest you, visit http://www.woodcraft.com or call (800) 535-4482.
The Lalor Park-based club started in 2006 with a few teachers and former students from Sydney Technical College, Ultimo.
It has since grown to include more than 150 members who enjoy getting together and sharing their creative talent and love of wood.
Based at the Twin Gums Retreat, the group welcomes newcomers and seasoned hands alike thanks to their wide array of classes.
Regular Saturday classes offer a beginner insight into their world, with experienced wood-turners teaching basic techniques and safe practice.
The club also runs open woodturning days, where members can simply enjoy the close-knit community and share tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration.
The Western Sydney Woodturners will be showing their wares and sharing their expertise at the Craft and Quilt Fair from August 11 to 14 at the Exhibition Park in Canberra.
The fair features more than 60 workshop sessions a day as well as stalls and retailers from around the country.
Woodturning is a form of woodworking that is used to create wooden objects on a lathe and through Lochgelly Community Use people are enjoying making top quality products.
It is different from other woodworking crafts in that the wood being crafted is moving, while the tools being used to shape and cut the wood are held stationary.
Woodturning dates back as far as 1300 BC when the Egyptians first developed a 2 man lathe. One person would turn the wood with a rope while the other used a sharp tool to cut shapes into the wood.
Luckily lathes have come a long way since then. They were motorised during the industrial revolution. Commercial woodturning is now done by computer operated machinery enabling mass-production. However, there is still demand for hand turned products.
Many people enjoy woodturning as a hobby and that is what is encouraged at Lochgelly community use. It gives great pleasure to see a lump of tree turned into an object that truly shows the beauty of many different kinds of wood, it is also very pleasing to touch.
If you would like to give woodturning a try, why not contact Lochgelly High School – Community Use and ask for information on their woodturning classes.
Said a spokesperson for the Community Use department: “Community Use at the High School has a varied programme of leisure classes for both adults and children.
“We also have a number of Learning for Work courses that have ILA approval. You could qualify for £200 towards a course that could help you access full-time and part-time employment.
“Learning for work courses include RLSS Pool Lifeguard, British Sign Language Level 1, UKCC Teaching Aquatics Levels 1 & 2, and Paediatric & Emergency First Aid.
“If you would like to know more you can contact us on 01592 583493 or e-mail communityuse.lochgelly@fife.gov.uk.
(Saint Paul, Minn. – August 9) The American Association of Woodturners (AAW) recently joined forces with GreenWood to carry out an innovative project in a remote region of Honduras. The project offered the craft of woodturning as a means to foster self-sufficiency, promote sustainable forest management, and preserve the world we love.
Together, the AAW and GreenWood groups taught Honduran artisans to turn and sell wooden hand-tools made from well-managed tropical hardwoods using a human-powered lathe. AAW teammates, shop teacher Scotty Lewis, and Manuel Suarez, an accomplished woodturner who is fluent in Spanish, traveled to Honduras for 15 days. They assembled the human-power lathe in the coastal town of La Ceiba and trucked it for nine hours to the remote village of Las Champas, located on the Honduran North Coast. Las Champas has limited access to electricity. There, Lewis and Suarez taught twelve artisans about woodturning and helped them to launch a program to make and sell wooden mallets on the global market. As a bonus, they also taught the basics of woodturning to an indigenous community of Pech Indians in the village of El Carbón.
Lewis designed the human-powered lathe as part of his teacher training. The lathe has a wooden frame held together with bolts and metal brackets. The pedals and chain, which were scavenged from a bicycle, drive a flywheel made from a bicycle wheel. Surrounding the wheel is a wooden ring weighted down with sand. As one person pedals, another uses woodturning chisels to shape everything from tops to bowls to mallets.
“The main difficulty was giving all the students time at the lathe,” Suarez remarked. They set up a rotation to give everyone a chance to both pedal and turn wood on the human-powered lathe. “I translated Scotty’s instructions and tried to adapt them to the students’ cultural and educational level.” The students waiting for their turn soon began to notice if the person at the lathe wasn’t moving his body correctly with the tool, or if the toolrest was too far from the work.
“We met the local doctor, who asked if his teenage daughter could see the lathe,” Suarez reported. “The next morning she came, observed the class, and suddenly she was seated at the lathe, pedaling as fast as demanded. That way, she won the right to try to turn.”
Suarez summed up the experience by saying, “The students were anxious to learn, thankful for our efforts to help them, and delighted with Scotty’s lathe.”
“This is a perfect project for us in our 30th anniversary year,” explained Phil McDonald, the AAW’s executive director. “It shows how woodturning can positively impact people’s lives. We appreciated the opportunity to help the Honduran artisans learn about woodturning and develop new products to sell. This project will serve as a model for future woodturning education endeavors with GreenWood and other nonprofits around the globe.”
Scott Landis, president of GreenWood, noted, “We’re all about using appropriate technology to support sustainable forest management and community development—Scotty’s lathe and this collaboration with AAW will really help us deliver tangible results for our local partners.”
About Woodturning
Woodturning is a unique form of woodworking that dates back to ancient Egypt. Woodturning is done on a lathe, a machine that holds and spins wood securely while it is shaped with sharp carving tools. Historically, woodturning has been used to create functional objects like chair legs, candlesticks, and bowls. Until the 19th century, most lathes were human-powered, typically with the help of a springy tree limb. The turner would wrap a rope around the wood to be turned, then up and around the limb and down to a foot treadle. Pumping the treadle moved the limb and made the wood spin. There were alternatives to the pole lathe, too. Some woodworking shops used a water wheel to drive belts that powered the lathe, while others had an apprentice run in the equivalent of a big hamster wheel to provide power.
About AAW
The AAW, founded in 1986, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art and craft of woodturning worldwide. It currently has more than 15,000 members and a network of over 350 local chapters globally. The Honduras project is an activity of the AAW’s Turners Without Borders committee, which helped Scotty Lewis build his human-powered lathe and take it to a school in the Dominican Republic in 2014. For more information on the AAW, visit: http://www.woodturner.org
About GreenWood
For nearly 25 years, the Maine-based nonprofit GreenWood has been fostering small-scale appropriate technologies and sustainable development in Central and South America. It works alongside local residents of remote forest communities to help them manage their forests and create high-value wood products. GreenWood artisans in Honduras have developed a diversified catalog of more than 25 standard furniture products; they also sell mahogany guitar parts and graded hardwood lumber. For more information on GreenWood, visit: http://www.greenwoodglobal.org.
###
Contact:
Kim Rymer
Communications Director
American Association of Woodturners
651-484-9094
kim@woodturner.org
Images/Video:
High-resolution images are available for download in the online media kit at http://www.woodturner.org/?page=MediaHondurasProject. A video showing a human-powered lathe in action is also available at this link. The video was shot during a woodturning education project in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic in 2015, when the students learned how to turn tops, bowls, and baseball bats.
Oneida Air Systems has created the American Craftsmen Showcase in co-sponsorship with Fine Woodworking magazine. One category is woodturning. 1st prize is an Oneida 1.5hp Mini-Gorilla Dust Collector. 2nd prize is $500. 3rd prize is a Deluxe Dust Deputy kit. Top ten picks receive an Oneida Air System T-shirt and a years subscription or a years extension to Fine Woodworking magazine. All entrys will be displayed on our website and social media. Pieces must have been made within the last 2 years. Over 18 years old and be residents of the U.S. Entry fee: None. Application period: September 1, 2016 – October 1, 2016. More information and to apply: http://www.oneida-air.com/acs, or info@oneida-air.com, or 800.732.4065.
An injured Camp Pendleton Marine found healing in woodworking and is sharing the art with comrades.
Retired Gunnery Sgt. Ernesto Aquino was wounded 12 years ago during his fifth deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan and came home with back injuries that left him wheelchair bound with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
He was close to taking his life, but the thought of his children without a father held him back. Four years ago, an occupational therapist introduced Aquino to woodworking.
“It has given me an avenue for coping with my PTSD,” Aquino said. “It saved my life.” Now Aquino teaches the craft to other Marines.
photo
Every Tuesday, Aquino goes to Camp Pendleton and mentors Marines at the Wounded Warrior Battalion during a woodturning therapy class that is part of a program called Turn Around for Vets, run by nonprofit San Diego Wood Turners.
Volunteers from the nonprofit bring donated lathes and wood and teach injured Marines woodturning skills to make pens, boxes and bowls and in the process come to terms with deep troubles. The free therapy program headed by Tom Lightner was founded by retired nurse Nan Bushley and orthopedic surgeon and former Navy officer Dr. Kenneth Roth.
Along with Camp Pendleton, the program also operates at Naval Medical Center San Diego and the Veterans Affairs Aspire Center near Old Town., where Aquino mentors comrades on Wednesdays.
Aquino set up a woodturning shop in his garage and backyard to teach Marines one-on-one at his home in Fallbrook. Last month, several dozen volunteers from Home Depot in partnership with San Marcos-based nonprofit Wounded Warrior Homes built work areas in Aquino’s garage and backyard so he could have more space to run woodturning therapy classes for veterans. So far he has taught 15 Marines, mostly from Camp Pendleton.
“I want to help others because I want them to experience the good of woodturning that hopefully will help them heal,” Aquino said. “Etium en Pugna — ‘Still in the Fight.’”
Some of the wood art made in the program is sold at area gift shops, such as Torrey Pine State Reserve Museum and Gift Shop, Naval Medical Center and Naval Air Station – North Island gift shops. Aquino also sells his work at facebook.com/bellazcaftedartz.
For information about the Turn Around for Veterans program, visit sdwt.org or email Aquino at P.ErnestoA@Yahoo.com.
Retired Gunnery Sgt. Ernesto Aquino was wounded 12 years ago during his fifth deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan and came home with back injuries that left him wheelchair bound with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
He was close to taking his life, but the thought of his children without a father held him back. Four years ago, an occupational therapist introduced Aquino to woodworking.
“It has given me an avenue for coping with my PTSD,” Aquino said. “It saved my life.” Now Aquino teaches the craft to other Marines.
photo
Every Tuesday, Aquino goes to Camp Pendleton and mentors Marines at the Wounded Warrior Battalion during a woodturning therapy class that is part of a program called Turn Around for Vets, run by nonprofit San Diego Wood Turners.
Volunteers from the nonprofit bring donated lathes and wood and teach injured Marines woodturning skills to make pens, boxes and bowls and in the process come to terms with deep troubles. The free therapy program headed by Tom Lightner was founded by retired nurse Nan Bushley and orthopedic surgeon and former Navy officer Dr. Kenneth Roth.
Along with Camp Pendleton, the program also operates at Naval Medical Center San Diego and the Veterans Affairs Aspire Center near Old Town., where Aquino mentors comrades on Wednesdays.
Aquino set up a woodturning shop in his garage and backyard to teach Marines one-on-one at his home in Fallbrook. Last month, several dozen volunteers from Home Depot in partnership with San Marcos-based nonprofit Wounded Warrior Homes built work areas in Aquino’s garage and backyard so he could have more space to run woodturning therapy classes for veterans. So far he has taught 15 Marines, mostly from Camp Pendleton.
“I want to help others because I want them to experience the good of woodturning that hopefully will help them heal,” Aquino said. “Etium en Pugna — ‘Still in the Fight.’”
Some of the wood art made in the program is sold at area gift shops, such as Torrey Pine State Reserve Museum and Gift Shop, Naval Medical Center and Naval Air Station – North Island gift shops. Aquino also sells his work at facebook.com/bellazcaftedartz.
For information about the Turn Around for Veterans program, visit sdwt.org or email Aquino at P.ErnestoA@Yahoo.com.
