Oodles of Doodles, 2nd Edition. Kevin Wallace

       INTRODUCTION

       Woodturning in the 21st Century

      During the 1960s and 1970s, turned wooden bowls first came to be considered as objects of contemplation rather than simply of function. An art-like market gradually developed among collectors who considered such bowls too beautiful to use. Turners of vision started to ignore tradition, and to make pieces that broke many of the old “rules” of the craft. It was a quiet revolution, but a strangely disconnected one, because many participants had no idea what the others were doing. If anyone read about woodturning, it would have been in books emphasizing the trade values of techniques, not of innovative shapes or aesthetics.

      In 1976, the American writer Dona Z. Meilach first documented the work for what it was—the beginning of a new art movement. In her book, Creating Small Wood Objects as Functional Sculpture, Meilach assembled much previously scattered history and put it into a larger context. She was probably the first person to describe turning as “sculptural” and to refer to turners as “artists.” Meilach also introduced people who would shape the new field such as Melvin Lindquist, Bob Stocksdale, and Stephen Hogbin. Meilach’s work alerted many artists to the fact that there were others like them, and also inspired many newcomers to join the movement.

      During the 1970s and into the 1980s, the then-new Fine Woodworking magazine published a series of articles that reached an enormous audience around the world and changed the future of turning forever. The series included stories on turning delicate bowls of exotic timber by Bob Stocksdale; heavily spalted wood, previously unheard of, by Mark Lindquist; green turning, a technique practiced by turners for hundreds of years, by Alan Stirt; inlaid wood with hi-tech finishes by Giles Gilson, and, most significant of all, a 1979 article by David Ellsworth on hollow turning. Ellsworth laid down his challenge to the turning world: “Bowl turning is one of the oldest crafts. It is also among the least developed as a contemporary art form.” Ellsworth was good at explaining the technical aspects of his work—lathe specifications, speed, tools—but he also introduced language and a philosophy that had never before been heard in relation to turning: “The concentration involves all senses equally, and the center of focus is transferred to the tip of the tool.” It was heady stuff, just right for the times, and it hit the mark in a culture ready for rule-breakers.