Finding inspiration and your own voice at the lathe

Butch Smuts (LAA Club evening, 5 April 2011)

Butch presented a talk and slide show on woodturning at the April club evening which was held at Kato’s house. The following topics were covered:

History of woodturning – woodturning started as a functional craft some 3 000 years ago and gradually became more artistic over time. The bow lathe was initially used to make platters and drinking cups and is believed to be the oldest woodworking machine known to man.

Technical considerations – woodturning involves a lathe which holds and turns the wood as well as many other hand held tools which are used to shape and hollow the wood. Turning requires skill and dexterity and a love of wood and wooden products. Although technical considerations tended to dominate woodturning for many years wood artists now use turned items (platters, bowls, etc.) as their canvas. These items are embellished using techniques such as carving, burning, staining, painting, inlay, texturing, gilding and others. Lathe artists can work with wet or dry wood, a product that is often freely available in towns and cities.

Inspiration and self expression – wood artists and artists in general need to achieve their own voice (signature) so that their work becomes recognizable to the public and collectors. To express themselves freely artists need to master techniques in their medium of choice and to develop an artistic repertoire which they can call on whenever necessary.

Apart from the obvious need for hard work, serious artists also need to study, observe and record things that interest them. They need to appreciate history, culture, aesthetics, proportion, composition, symmetry, colour, contrast, texture, volume, tension, design and many other aspects of their art. When artists become visually literate they will be able to create works of art that inspire others and that create a visual dialogue with other people.

By incorporating their own life skills, inherited and acquired, into their work artists will be able to produce their own unique brand of art. This goal may take many years to achieve.

Butch ended his talk with more slides of a variety of woodturning techniques which included ornamental turning, segmented turning and his own speciality of multiple-axis turning and cut-out and inlay techniques on the rims of hardwood bowls.