After preparing the piece, I visited Bill Covington who used his laser engraving system to add this scene on the front and the text below on the back.
The communion table stands 8" tall, is 2" thick, measures 14" wide, and has an oil-based finish.
Many Eyes is a stabile made of birds eye maple.
The base started as a laminated block that was turned to a deep bowl. The layers of the bowl were then seperated. 
After additional carving and texturing the interior and base were embellished with my unique pyrographic three-line design.
During my last visit to the John C. Campbell Folk School, I found a non-descript piece of cherry burl in the pile of trash wood. I turned this hollow vessel during my class with Kim Blatt.
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Golden Leopard is a segmented mobile. Each of the rings (except for the smallest one) is made from 32 leopardwood segments - 161 segments in all. The outer ring measures 19-5/8" and the center ring 1-1/4". The photo below shows a test glue-up.
Titled Moonlight at Delicate Arch, this stabile was part of the Instant Gallery. The upper portions rotate freely above the base and the moon hanging below the arch also moves. Named for the magnificent Delicate Arch rock bridge in Utah, this piece (wenge and birdseye maple) was sold to a Memphis attorney prior to the symposium.
Erosion was created specifically for the AAW Education Opportunity Grant (EOG) auction. The cherry hollow form with my performation technique and pyrographied interior sold for $250.00, 100% of which was donated to the EOG fund.
"Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder; not the stormy torrent or eroding rain; but the tender snow-flowers, noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries." (John Muir)
The letter was in the mailbox today ~ Journey has been accepted into the juried Spirit of the Southwest exhibit that debuts at the 2009 AAW Symposium in Albuquerque!
Here's how I spent the morning of my birthday this year ~ participating in the canoe and kayak race on the Mississippi River . . . in the rain!
December was my last meeting as President of the Mid-South Woodturner's Guild ~ and this is the Ambrosia Maple platter and stand that Dennis Paullus made for me. THANK YOU!!!Text by Joan Kelly and video by Larry Sefton
Japanese Bowls, a Memphis Perspective is a project of the Mid-South Woodturners Guild. This endeavor is patterned after a similar collection of turnings, Japanese Bowls, A Western Perspective, by internationally recognized woodturning artists. In early 2007, the American Association of Woodturners was given several dozen roughed-turned rice bowls. These bowls were left over from a New York exhibition (which included a demonstration component) of traditional Japanese urushi ware, an art form that dates back 6,000 years. The artists were invited to take one of the rough bowls, which were essentially identical, and finish them in their own unique styles.
Dennis Paullus, a long time member of MSWG, undertook the effort to duplicate the rough turned traditional bowls like the Japanese produce. These rough bowls are turned from green wood and are approximately five inches tall and five inches in diameter. They are left about an inch thick to allow for warping of the wood as it dries. After a suitable drying period, guild members were invited to take one of the bowls and create the Memphis Perspective.
Our members bring a wide variety of experience to the lathe. The only requirement for guild membership is having an interest in woodturning. This show represents the efforts of people who turn “just for fun” and people who aspire to be gallery artists; people who have turned for a short while, and people who have turned for decades.
For more information about the Mid-South Woodturners Guild, please visit our web site at http://www.midsouthwoodturners.com/
