American bowl

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Bowl 25 Feb 23

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An oak bowl, power carved along a tall rim, is painted with milk paint. It has a diameter of 162 mm at the rim, is 50 mm high and 38 mm deep inside.

Bowl 10II23

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This maple bowl has a diameter of 191 mm. It is 59 mm high to the rim and 43 mm deep inside. The interior of the bowl is finished with wax. After charring & buffing, an oil-wax finish was applied to the exterior.

Size

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When I post images of bowls, I make note of their sizes. If turned in France, I note those in metric. If turned in the United States, the size is noted in Imperial units. Nothing compares to holding the bowls in one’s hands though. In lieu of photographing my own hands holding a bowl, I took this shot as I passed through the kitchen: bowls holding one another.

A nest of bowls. At the top is boxwood. It sits in a bowl of American cherry. Next is a bowl of french plum. The largest of the four is European cherry.

Bowl 29XII22

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A 3-footed bowl of cherry gifted to Nicolas & Sylvie: it measures 142 mm in diameter at the rim, 88 mm high, and 54 mm deep at the center. The interior finish is oil-wax. Before using gouges to carve the exterior of the bowl, the tenon foot created to chuck the bowl to the lathe was carved to form 3 separate feet. The exterior finish is milk paint, buffed smooth.

Linden pollard bowl

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This linden bowl is 117 mm wide at rim, 51 mm high, and 40 mm deep at the center. It was turned rough and steamed for one hour. The bowl was weighed daily until its weight remained unchanged over 2-3 days. It was then turned to its final form and finished with a citrus oil.

The linden came from a property in the Burgundy region of France. In quintessential French fashion, the tree was heavily pruned over many decades in a process known as pollarding. In French, the resulting distorted forms are têtes des chats — cat’s heads. The wood is highly figured and can include sizable voids.

Red bowl

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A cherry wood bowl, 186 mm round at its widest, 47mm high to the rim, and 35 mm deep, is finished on the inside with oil-wax. The exterior, coved with a round nose shear scraper, has a milk paint finish of red over black.

Carved & charred

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This bowl of maple was turned, carved & charred — and charred again.

Charring a carved bowl is surprisingly difficult. The flames do not want to reach into the recesses. After showing the bowl, my principal critic asked for less contrast between the bare maple and the charred maple. The second char went a bit far though, actually opening a crack where the bowl is textured around its circumference. It’s since closed up but that bowl was lit!

The inside is finished with oil & wax. The dark marks at the bowl bottom are not from errant flames but are the bark from an included branch.

The diameter is 188 mm at the rim and 64 mm from it’s foot. It is 48 mm deep inside.

Bowl 19XII22

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Green boxwood, turned into a small bowl — more of a cup really. Boxwood grain is very fine grained; turning it when wet yields delightfully long shavings.

3 footed bowl

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A cherry wood bowl, with hand carved texture and 3 feet formed from the tenon created to chuck the bowl to the lathe.

A f*cking beautiful bowl

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The moment it became a projectile, I was convinced this small bowl would not make it out of the shop. The damage was not severe — nothing more than what might be found after years of use. This one goes to my sister who declared when she saw it, that’s “a f*cking beautiful bowl”. It is 5 ¼” x 1 ½”. The wood is black cherry, prunus serotina.

Maine platters

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A the end of September, I spent one week at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. This was my 3rd course at what many simply call (the) woodschool. The course, Turned and Carved Platters with Al Stirt, was my second turning course. The first was an introduction to turning with Beth Ireland.

Maine platters

Maine platters

A week of turning wood

The Coq & Bulldog

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This pro bono project, started during the first confinement in France on account of COVID-19, was finished during the second confinement.

The project goal was to improve the 10-year-old “temporary” back bar, including adding a gate to protect this private area from overly eager patrons.

Coq & Bulldog_8130.jpeg

Coq & Bulldog

A new back bar