For the past 17 years, Morganton resident Steve Noggle has been using his grandfather’s depression-era store that he transformed into his woodshop to take raw wood and make them into unique creations.

Noggle, who was born in Morganton, spent 25 years as an engineer in the furniture industry before he took a chance at learning the art of wood turning, which involves using a lathe and a bowl gouge.

“I was always interested in carpentry and wood,” Noggle said. “I have made some of my own furniture and, one day, a friend of mine suggested I do wood turning.”

He bought a cheap lathe, practically taught himself the craft and the rest is history. He now has completed thousands of wood art pieces, including salad bowls, vases, hollow formed vessels, natural – edged bowls and decorative bowls, and shows them in multiple galleries locally and in neighboring cities.

“I wanted to get out of the furniture business … I wanted an excuse, at the time, to have another way of having an income and enjoying it, ” Noggle said.

He does all his work in his backyard where his shop is located. The woodshop once was used as a store owned by his grandfather to sell the family’s farm produce in the 1930s and ’40s and was located on Enola Road before it was uprooted and moved to Noggle’s backyard.

After buying large tree logs from local loggers or cutting off burls from trees, he uses a chainsaw to cut off a piece of the log with the size depending on what he is making.

“With that chunk, I bring it into my shop and carve the piece I want out of the log,” Noggle said. “Basically, it (the lathe) turns the wood and I carve the shape that I want while it is spinning.”

He uses several types of wood including maple, cherry, ambrosia, walnut, oak and burl wood.

When attaching the piece of wood to the lathe, it holds up the bowl and spins it at a fast rate so that he can use the bowl gouge to start carving. After he is done carving, sometime s the finished product warps and becomes uneven along the edges, so he has to carve and smooth it out again.

Noggle can make one of his wooden bowls in as quickly as one day, but sometimes it takes longer than that depending on how much detail he is putting into it, he said.

“I form them and then let them dry for a couple of weeks and then work on them again after they dry,” he said.

He finds joy in people who end up purchasing his artwork, but says that it is not just about selling and making a profit.

“That is probably the most satisfying thing of all,” Noggle said. “Sure you can go to a show or sell at the gallery … sure it is great to make money, but it is even greater satisfaction to see somebody wanting your piece to put in their home.”

To Noggle, the craft can be almost a form of meditation.

He finds joy in people who end up purchasing his artwork, but says that it is not just about selling and making a profit.

“That is probably the most satisfying thing of all,” Noggle said. “Sure you can go to a show or sell at the gallery … sure it is great to make money, but it is even greater satisfaction to see somebody wanting your piece to put in their home.”

To Noggle, the craft can be almost a form of meditation.

The injury has been a wakeup call to how much time and effort he is putting into his production. Noggle plans on focusing on more quality pieces than how much he is producing.

Noggle showcases his work mainly at the Southern Highland Craft Guild and the Ariel Gallery in Asheville where he is a co-owner. The gallery is located at 19 Biltmore Ave. in Asheville. He also has pieces at the Hamilton Williams Gallery in downtown Morganton located at 403 E. Union St.

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An Owen Sound artist, wood-turner and furniture maker was the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award winner at the ninth annual Owen Sound Cultural Awards Sunday.

Stephen Hogbin was selected by a jury, in a non-competitive process, which considered different candidates and selected the person members thought best meets the criteria for recognition.

Owen Sound Coun. Scott Greig, who presented the award, described Hogbin in prepared remarks as one “who has spent his life as an artist, a designer, a curator, an author, a teacher, an inventor and a mentor.”

Greig said Hogbin is “recognized internationally by collectors, educators and professional organizations for his influence in studio woodturning and furniture making.”

Past lifetime achievement winners have included former Georgian Bay Symphony music director John Barnum, musician and broadcaster Alfie Fromager, and local music teacher and active community member Ariel Barkley.

Hogbin said he was “very touched” and surprised during his remarks upon receiving the award. “But I’m really not old enough,” the 75-year-old said to a roar of laughter from event attendees at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre.

“The joke in the family is that I’m going to work on my projects until I’m 100, and then take the next five years off.”

He noted the “humble nature of woodworking” and that he likes creating “low-tech” worthwhile, useful, beautiful, lasting things with wood.

The annual awards event recognized eight individuals and organizations in various categories to honour contributions which have enriched to the city’s culture.

They included scenic painter Chris Morton (Emerging Artist), musician and radioman Steve Ritchie (Outstanding Individual), Georgian Bay Symphony (Outstanding Group), the 42nd Annual Summerfolk Music and Crafts Festival (Outstanding Event), the Awesome Sydenham Riverfest Extravaganza (Most Promising New Event), Maryann Thomas (Cultural Heritage), and Michael Warren (Cultural Catalyst).

Sandcastle Theatre and Owen Sound’s poet laureate, Lauren Best, performed during the two-hour awards ceremony.

Hogbin opened his Intersections woodworking studio and shop in downtown Owen Sound in late 2016. There he teaches woodworking to classes and in seminars. He shows and sells wood-related art in the adjoining studio.

He has curated many gallery exhibitions featuring the work of dozens of local artists. In 2016 he curated an exhibit at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, which raised the question whether trees were sentient, as one gallery writer observed.

That exhibit began with the Extraordinary Tree Project, which Hogbin has said he conceived while reflecting on the changes he expects the region to see in the coming years with the invasion of the emerald ash borer.

People nominated special trees across Grey-Bruce for their beauty, historical and personal significance. Those selected were exhibited at Grey Roots, while the gallery ran a related exhibit of Tom Thomson’s paintings. There were other related projects which ran in conjunction with the project too.

In an interview after the awards event, Hogbin said he wasn’t as “bright” as his three academically oriented brothers so he entered a live-in cabinet college to learn how to use woodworking tools. But he was more interested in design and so went to art school.

Hogbin graduated from the Royal College of Art in London, England, in 1964. He moved to Canada in 1968, taught design and woodworking at Sheridan College, and opened a studio in Toronto.

He has been creating art, furniture and other pieces from wood in his studios since 1971. He has written books, essays and articles, curated exhibitions and taught people about woodworking over the years.

His work can be seen in Chapman House, which has a clock he made, and in Harrison Park, where there’s a wood representation of a canoe near where canoes are rented in summer. More of his public work can be found at his website, http://www.stephenhogbin.com/publicart.html.

Hogbin is involved in a new project to beautify the Owen Sound hospital grounds by planting trees. Though one tree would provide him with enough wood for work for a year or two, it is essential that he replant what is taken, he said.

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About 100 people attended Booth Western Art Museum’s Art for Lunch program Wednesday afternoon to hear father and son duo Philip and Matthew Moulthrop discuss the ins and outs of woodturning.

“Nature provides the palette for what we’re doing,” said Matthew Moulthrop, who has art on display at the Carter Center in Atlanta, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and the Contemporary Museum in Hawaii. “Woodturning is a revelation process. We’re uncovering, and you can’t go back. Ultimately, the piece will only be as good as what we start with.”

His father Philip has pieces in the permanent collections at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. and the Olympic Museum in Switzerland.

Woodturning runs in the family. Philip’s father and Matthew’s grandfather Edward Moulthrop, has had work displayed at the Vatican, the Olympics and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Philip and Matthew, both from Marietta, narrated a “virtual tour” video of their studio while attendees enjoyed chicken-fried steak and mounds of brown gravy-topped mashed potatoes. They fielded questions from the audience, many of them seasoned woodworkers themselves, throughout the presentation.

Philip discussed his lathe and bandsaw techniques while Matthew gave attendees the skinny on their best practices for wood treatment — sometimes, he said he has to let his material soak in a polyethylene glycol mixture for upwards of nine months before reshaping can begin.

He said he asks loggers and other individuals who work in forestry to send him leads.

“We don’t go out with a chainsaw into national forests,” he said. “We have tree cutters, who are out there in their regular jobs  … we tell them if they come across such-and-such a tree, or you see this or something unusual, call us up.”

The two said they’ve worked with everything from poplar to mimosa to chocolate cedar — they even put together a poison ivy vine coffee table. Matthew said he’s also created works of art out of wood taken from Harry Truman’s White House and buildings constructed in the 1800s.

“If you cut a tree and if it’s just pure, plain white, that’s not something we’re interested in,” Philip said. “We’re interested in something that has colors or some kind of pattern caused by fungus that gets in there.”

Their lecture touched upon the many hard sciences behind their artwork, including physics and chemistry. Matthew explained how altering the pH balance of wood could turn otherwise unremarkable logs cherry red and lima bean green.

“It’s kind of like highlighting hair,” he remarked.

Continuing, he estimated that 75 percent to 80 percent of their work was dedicated to the finishing process — sanding, coating and polishing their art to completion.

Although woodturning has been around since ancient Egypt, Matthew said the kinds of bowl-like decorative woodworkings he and his father create have only come into fashion in the art world fairly recently.

Cartersville residents will have an opportunity to see much more of the Moulthrops’ work in the not-too-distant future. Museum executive director Seth Hopkins announced Booth will host a special Moulthrop exhibit in 2020.

“It will be about 40 pieces of the Moulthrops’ work. We’re hoping it will be roughly half and half between Phillip and Matt, but also some older pieces from Ed, the grandfather who started this whole thing,” he said. “They are collected worldwide and have a lot of very important collectors … they have developed quite a following, so we’re very hopeful to have a lot of those people come from around the world to see the exhibition.”

Keeping with the museum’s motif, the Moulthrops will create artwork from wood imported from the Western United States for the exhibit.

“The difficult part is locating it and getting it shipped,” Philip said. “A lot of times the shape may depend on what the wood looks like – it’s not always going to be the same globe shape.”

Hopkins said he is optimistic Booth will be able to add a few pieces from the temporary exhibit to the museum’s permanent collection. The museum, however, has already acquired one piece of Matthew’s woodturning art, which will be auctioned off at Booth’s For the Love of Art gala scheduled for Feb. 24.

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Brookfield Craft Center and the Nutmeg Woodturners League will team up to make bowls for the Beads of Courage charity.

On Saturday, Feb. 17, the craft center will turn its wood-turning studio over to the league for a “Learn-n-Turn” day. Members of the public are welcome to attend and encouraged to try their hand at making a wooden bowl for charity. All the bowls made that day will be donated to Beads of Courage.

Beads of Courage is an arts-in-medicine supportive care program for children coping with serious illness, their families and the health care providers who care for them. The beads are used by the children as meaningful symbols of courage and hope along their treatment journey.

Ken Rist, president of the Woodturners League, said, “This event was so successful last year the members of our group wanted to do it again. It is great that we can partner with the Craft Center for this great cause.”

The Nutmeg Woodturners League is a local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners. The League promotes woodturning as a craft and art form. The primary goal of the League is to educate members and provide a meeting place for local wooturners where they can share ideas and techniques. They meet at the Brookfield Craft Center on the second Monday of every other month (January, March, May, September, November). All are welcome.

The Brookfield Craft Center was founded in 1952 and is recognized as one of the core fine craft schools in America. The center offers classes and workshops in glass arts, woodturning, ceramics, painting, jewelry, blacksmithing, fiber arts and other creative endeavors for children and adults, taught by professional faculty.

The historic Mill Building (ca 1780) Gift Shop and Exhibition Gallery is a beautiful venue for displaying fine craft. All works are carefully juried and are representative of the type of skills individuals can learn in our classes. As a force for arts advocacy and community building, Brookfield Craft Center strives to teach and preserve the skills of fine craftsmanship, and to enable creativity and personal growth through craft education.

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(Australia) Despite the black cloud that hangs over the Port of Echuca, Australia, its resident woodturners have no immediate plans to up stump and move on.

The Port of Echuca Woodturners, run by husband and wife Michael and Donna Katzer, have been operating in the port for the past 17 years and say in that time their roots have been planted deep.

And although they have been creating custom made furniture for years, their bespoke business is a rapidly growing one.

‘‘We do whatever people want us to make,’’ Michael said.

‘‘The tourism trade is slowing in the port so we are doing more custom furniture and that is definitely growing.

‘‘With the tourists who do come to the port and drop in on us my furniture is able to be sold overseas and right around the country.

‘‘That’s not something you get everywhere.’’

Michael said it is hard to get locals to the port.

‘‘People just think you will get ripped off at the port,’’ he said.

‘‘A lot of people don’t know we actually do custom made furniture, but rather think we do just giftware.

‘‘The more abstract and more unique an idea the more I love doing it.

‘‘I always say I don’t like making the same thing twice and with custom furniture people can get exactly what they want.’’

The Katzer’s believe they can keep their business thriving in the port although are unsure about the council’s plans for the former Oscar W’s building.

‘‘I have been on the fence about what is happening behind me here,’’ he said.

‘‘It has definitely affected tourism and something had to happen with that space.

‘‘I know what the port was like 15 years ago and I want it to get back to that again and we believe we can keep this going down here.’’

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If David Heim ’68, JRN’75 were to see you cutting down a tree in your yard, he might politely ask you for some of the wood to turn. He likes maple “because it’s easy to work with and it finishes beautifully.” Cherry, too. He avoids tropical hardwoods, many of which contain the mineral silica, because, he says, “they’re murder on tools” — and they’re expensive.

Turning is shorthand for woodturning, and Heim has been an avid practitioner for almost 15 years. The craft involves attaching a rough piece of wood to a lathe, which rapidly spins the wood while the turner uses a sharp chisel to shape it. Heim made his first bowl in 2003. Curious about turning, he visited a lumberyard, bought some basswood and brought it to his father-in-law’s workshop. “He’s not a bowl-turner, so he didn’t have the right tools, but I managed to make a bowl-shaped object nonetheless,” Heim says. He was hooked.

Today, Heim — who lives in Oxford, Conn., with his wife, Kate, and 34-year-old son, Theodore — spends 15–20 hours a week in a small shop above his garage (now equipped with all the right tools, including three lathes, a table saw, a drill press and a bandsaw). Bowls are his favorite things to make, and he points to one in particular — made of beech — as an example of what he loves about turning. The surface is covered with jagged, dark lines and looks like an old map of the world. “I knew that the wood was spalted — used as a cafeteria by various fungi — but I had no clue it would produce such a wonderful pattern until I had shaped the bowl,” Heim says. “Surprises like that keep me going.”

Heim sells some of his creations on Etsy (etsy.com/shop/davidheim), offering bowls, serving platters, shaving kits, vases and other items. His is a hobbyist operation, though his work doesn’t take him far: He freelances for woodturning publications and has written two books: Woodturning Patterns: 80+ Designs for the Workshop, Garden, and Every Room in the House (2017) and SketchUp Success for Woodworkers: Learn the Basics for Quickly and Accurately Creating 3D Designs, due out this year. Now retired from a full-time career, Heim spent 28 years at Consumer Reports in various editor roles before his love of his craft took him to Fine Woodworking from 2005 to 2009. (His journalism roots lie with Spectator, for which he was managing editor and even helped to scoop The New York Times with a special issue on the Vietnam draft.)

Heim, who is on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Woodturners, has different ways of working with words and wood. “When I’m at the computer, writing something or editing, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what the finished product will be, and I have a pretty good idea of the path I have to follow,” he says. “If I mount a piece of wood on the lathe, I have a vague idea of what’s going to happen, but I have to let the wood guide me. I can’t force a shape into a piece of wood sometimes because there’s a flaw in the middle of the piece of wood and I have to work around that.”

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When you walk into Devon Palmer’s studio at the Columbus Idea Foundry, you’ll likely notice a few details right away: walls painted bright orange (Palmer’s favorite color); the painting of a naked man sitting on a hamburger (his “spirit animal”); and unfinished bowls, urns and sculptures (products of his woodturning craft). But perhaps the most meaningful item is the center table, constructed from a bowling alley lane.

“He got this specifically because people could stand around it, and we’ll throw little get-togethers in here,” said Palmer’s partner, Phil Borkow, who joined Palmer’s friends around the table for a late-January interview. They told stories of Palmer making pizza using his onsite pizza oven, always with shots of Jameson on hand.

“This is more than just a studio,” Borkow said. “This is his place to just have everyone come and hang out.”

But Palmer’s studio is quieter these days. On November 27, 2017, he was in a serious motorcycle accident that resulted in fractures to his left leg, two broken wrists and a fractured pelvis.

“There was a fear in the beginning that he wasn’t going to make it,” Borkow said. “The orthopedic surgeon … told Devon that this is the worst damage he’s ever seen to a pelvis in 25 years of his work.”

After about a month-long hospital stay and multiple surgeries, Palmer is recovering in a rehab facility. He has regained some mobility — he was recently able to put himself in a wheelchair — but he has a long way to go, Borkow said.

The good news is Palmer hasn’t had to face his predicament alone. “It’s a nonstop parade of people coming to see him, which he loves,” said Borkow, who helped organize the “Turn Devon Around Benefit Show,” taking place at the Columbus Idea Foundry on Saturday, Feb. 3. Proceeds from the live art auction will go to Palmer’s medical care.

Columbus Idea Foundry

7-10 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 3

421 W. State St., Franklinton

“He doesn’t have much connection with family,” Borkow continued. “He makes [it] very, very clear that the community here in Columbus is who he’s chosen to surround himself with.”

The LGBT and “bohemian art community” is what drew Palmer to Columbus from Indiana in 2002. Besides his own woodturning creations, which must sit for up to three years, Palmer teaches classes at Woodcraft of Columbus and the local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners.

Palmer explained his love for the arts community on a call from the rehab facility. “It’s just full of expression and creativity and authenticity, [with] people bearing very real and private parts of them,” he said. “It takes a lot of character and a lot of bravery to do that, and I just really admire those things.”

Palmer is determined to be “almost back to normal” in June for the Columbus Arts Festival, where he has been a memorable presence, teaching attendees how to make their own pens.

“He comes for the whole weekend and stays from open to close all three days,” said Tona Pearson, an independent event organizer and friend. “He keeps frozen pouches of applesauce and when we look tired, he’ll just come and drop one near us.”

“And Klondike Bars,” Borkow added. “He’s known for his cooler of Klondike bars. He’ll wander around events here in Franklinton, like [on] the Fourth of July, … and hand them out.”

“He’s one of the most gregarious people I’ve ever met,” Pearson said. “He’s just always happy. Even when he’s frustrated, he’s happily frustrated because he has something to work out now.”

Palmer has even remained upbeat in the midst of his recovery. “Even when the accident happened, the nurses were freaked out because he’s telling his bad dad jokes,” Borkow said. “Literally an hour after the accident, [he’s] just laying there saying, ‘You know what, I’m alive and we’ll get through this.’”

And the benefit has certainly buoyed his spirits. “It really made me feel good that someone would go out of their way to do something like this because normally, it’s me doing something like this,” Palmer said.

The response was so overwhelming that the location had to be changed from the smaller Vanderelli Room to the Idea Foundry. With over 70 pieces of donated art, organizers had to turn artists away. And, as part of the live entertainment, Movement Activities Aerial Dance will perform a new piece choreographed for Palmer.

But it’s not the help Palmer stands to gain from the benefit, which he hopes to attend in his wheelchair, that has him excited.

“This event’s going to have, in my humble opinion, some of the city’s most spectacular, burgeoning artists,” Palmer said. ”[You] don’t have to come out for me, but just come out and appreciate the art.”

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David Press is a longtime practitioner of the craft of woodturning, and he is surrounded by proof of his passion.

“I like taking a piece of wood, finding what’s in it, and either making something that’s beautiful or something that’s useful,” says Press.

“Or, when I’m really lucky, it’s both.”

Woodturning involves using a lathe to transform a square piece of wood into a smooth object, usually with rounded corners, by spinning and chiseling the wood to shape it.  
Many years of turning wood

Press first got into the craft of woodturning when he was a teenager, watching his father practicing the art in the family basement.

He started woodturning seriously about 25 years ago.

Press is a longtime member of the Avalon Woodturners’ Guild, and he is one-half of Two Turners, along with fellow wood turner Pete Stanbridge.  

Together, the duo brings their wood turned bowls, bottle stoppers and funky decorative mushrooms to craft fairs all over the Avalon Peninsula.

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Two Randolph County artists have spent the past several weeks working together to create a unique piece of artwork for the upcoming 21st Annual ArtsBank, Inc. Auction.

Kate Goodrich-Arling and Dave Shombert work with different mediums and differing perspectives, but one thing they agree on is how important the arts are in schools.

Shombert said, “There’s not enough arts in the schools; there’s not enough art in people’s lives, period, and the sooner that they start learning art the better for all of us.”

“Children have great ability to create, to look at the world around them and not necessarily see things as adults often see them, but it seems that so much that as you grow up as an adult you lose that, and you stop being excited about color and texture and what if.  If I put this together with this what do I get,” said Goodrich-Arling.

ArtsBank provides hands-on learning experiences for students through the instruction of professional artists.

“I like watching things come together, and I love the idea of ArtsBank providing students with teachers who can nurture that in them,” continued Goodrich-Arling.

Shombert said he had no formal art education, and his passion for woodturning came after he realized there was an artistic side to it.

“I got into woodturning at a time when I thought of woodturning as a craft, and to a large extent, it is, and when I reached the point with woodturning that I realized that there was also an artistic side to it, I was really interested in that, and I realized I knew almost nothing about art,” said Shombert.

Goodrich-Arling works with several different mediums and is happy to inspire and contribute to art education for area students.

“I find that if I get all excited about color and texture I can overwork a piece, and if I come back later, I’ll go ‘ah, that’s what that needs,’” said Goodrich-Arling.

Goodrich-Arling said it’s not worth doing if you are not enjoying what you’re doing.

Catch the collaborative artwork at the auction on February 24 at the Beverly Volunteer Fire Department.

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Alchemy was the medieval “science” that sought the transmutation of base metals into gold. In his own way, Joel Hunnicutt appears to turn wood into glass. There might not be an official term for that — other than amazing.

Twenty years ago, Hunnicutt was living in Siler City, North Carolina, where he was a partner in a small insurance agency. After he and his wife purchased a century-old house, he bought some books and tools with the idea of making repairs and perhaps building some bookshelves. Then he signed up for a furniture-making class in a nearby community college. What happened next changed his life.

“It was so fascinating to see this hunk of wood spinning on the lathe and changing shape right in front of me,” says Hunnicutt. “The immediacy of the feedback really suited my temperament. I was getting results right away.” He promptly bought his own lathe and proceeded to spend every night and most weekends working in his shop.

Basically self taught through books and online forums, Hunnicutt soon discovered he was more drawn to constructed work than simply wood turning. In constructed work, several pieces of wood are glued together before the work is put on the lathe. Hunnicutt says in one of his 20-inch-tall pieces, for example, there might be as many as 250 portions of wood, each cut to the nearest 1/16th of an inch.

Many of his designs are inspired by those found in ancient pottery. “There have been fantastic vessel forms produced for thousands of years … in Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Chinese cultures, just to name a few,” says Hunnicutt. He studies these, looking for new shapes. “When I see a form that I respond to, I design a new piece with the lines of the ancient piece in mind,” he explains. “I have to couple this with the physical realities of the material I’m working with, and then start thinking about negative space and color and how those elements will alter the original design.”

Even though he learned all these skills on his own, he knew there were countless other wood turners constructing similar works from multiple pieces of wood. To thrive, he needed to be unique, so he began experimenting by alternating coats of lacquer with coats of color. “The effect,” he says, “is much like in the theater where a gel is put over a light to turn the whole stage red.” When finished, the vessels appear to have the luminosity of glass.

“I was becoming more and more interested in the wood shop and less interested in insurance,” he says. But with an insurance man’s foresight, he managed to sculpt a niche in a riskily saturated market. It wasn’t long before he was selling his works — and, not long after that, enthusiastic gallery representation allowed him to go full time. “My partner in the agency wanted to make some changes,” he says. “It was a good time to make the leap.”

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