Jones' Woodworks

Yesterday both Eileen and I were priviliged to be involved in the Art Days Celebration down in Fort MacLeod, Alberta. Eileen spent the afternoon playing away on her quitar which was quite the experience. She had expected to play with her band but when the other two ended up sick she decided to go it alone – sans equipment. Apparantly she has a regular booking now with the quilters group for their monthly meetings. She just said they were so much fun that she thinks she is going to take them up on it. She also had kids of all ages dancing around her as she played so someone was enjoying themselves.

Myself, I spent the afternoon outside on one of my portable lathes. It was extremely interesting as I was with a very talented Blacksmith by the name of Marin Reinhard from Stavely, Alberta and a super wheelright by the name of George Kelly from Blackie, Alberta. What talented men. At any rate, I spent the time turning spinning tops for the little kids and grannies (who remembered playing with them as kids). I also turned a couple of bud-vases for dried flowers and a couple of bowls. It was fun giving away all that I made – virtually all to the kids or seniors. It was awesome being able to share stories with George and Martin. It was a thoroughly wonderful time and I would do it again in a second.

 This is the first in a new series for us – It is called Primitive. I recently took a workshop from Doug Fisher of Parksville, BC. He does multi-centered turnings – often wall hangings or stand alone sculptures. As you can see from the picture of the bottom, I have tried to take his ideas and mould them in to something quite different yet still using his techniques. I am not sure that this is really the vision that I had when I started on the bowl but it has provided us with a starating point. I posted this piece on the World of Woodturners web site this week and most of the guys who commented on it felt that I should just have let the inside alone – as in leave it all natural in colour. I can’t say that I disagree with them but some part of my tiny little brain just wanted to go there for some reason. One of the guys suggested that I could do the same thing on the inside of the bowl as well and that it would balance things out. As I work my way through the second piece in this series I decided to give that a try. I think it is too dark – myself – but I will let you decide that when I post the pictures when it is complete. I still really like the possibilities of this process. The off-center thing intriques me and the use of the deep-penetrating dyes and India Ink are totally new processes for me that I will continue to work with. I actually have the piece I completed in Dougs’ workshop but I have yet to complete the back side of it and make the stand. I really like this process and I will continue to pursue it. I would love to hear your comments on this style of turning. It is a much more utilitarian design than the thin-walled, pierced, textured and painted things I have been doing for the last little while.

We have recently had three new pieces accepted in to the Southern Alberta Woodworkers Society 2011 Exhibition which opened yesterday at the South Centre Mall, Calgary, Alberta. This is a juried show that requires all pieces to pass the “standards committee” before they even get to the jury. We are very pleased to be included in this show. There are many wonderful craftsmen in Southern Alberta and this exhibition (which has occured every two years for at least 30 years) is a fine showcase for their work. If you choose to attend you will see some wonderful work – some very traditional and some that are off the wall creative. You can also see the show on their web site at title=”Soutern Alberta Woodworkers Society 2011 Exhibtion” target=”_blank”>www.saws.ca . Unfortunately I do not have a picture of the third piece yet – one is coming from the exhibition committee soon. Part of being in this exhibition is that all the pieces are published in a booklet done by the pros. We are also excited about being published for the second time in 3 months. Maybe things are going in the right direction for us.

   Our “Light Dancer” series has opened up an entirely new and passionate area in woodturning – for us that is. I first saw these two-part hollow-forms made at a demonstration by Brian McEvoy (www.onegoodturn.ca). Brian is one of the worlds leading experts on turning thin. The two-part hollow-form was the beginning of a new idea for us – I had this vision that if we pierced, textured and painted these surfaces that are turned to 5/1000″ , and then put a tea-light candle holder in them, that they would produce an incredible pattern on not only the surface on which it sits but also on to the walls and ceiling of the room that it is in. The picture to the left, is actually the very first “Light Dancer” I made. It is part of our private collection – in fact it resides in our camper and is often lit at night when we finally come in to the trailer. These pieces continue to amaze me – I have been asked to turn some tall vases and do piercing etc. on them but I just haven’t gotten around to going there because the “Light Dancers” fascinate me so much. I can’t wait to finish each piece so that I can light them to see the type of pattern they produce. Each time one is lit – we have to turn it multiple times to see the pattern as it sits with each detail pointing towards us – thus giving us a different pattern to our eyes. (I don’t know whether that makes sense or not but it is literally what it is like) So I, (Jim) do the turning, piercing and texturing – I even do the air-brushing – but Eileen does the hand-painting  (an example of these are shown through out the rest of this post). Sometimes we just let the grain of the wood do the talking. When the bowls are turned this thin (5\1000″) the light actually shows right through the wood itself – usually producing a light the colour of the wood. It is very “cool” as far as we are concerned. Eileen spends lots of time researching each painting before attempting to put them on to the bowls. There are two sides of this procedure, the first of which is that it takes here quite a long time to prepare for each painting but the up-side of that is she can paint virtually any image a client wants on their “personalized bowl”. Eileen, as always, does the finish on these pieces. I firmly believe that the finishing work she does is what makes my work look so good. She is a master at covering my mistakes. Eileen has finished all my cabinets and furniture for over 30 years plus she refinishes and restores antiques. I think she does an awesome job and can’t imagine what would occur if I had to start doing my own finishing. I also like to air-brush some of these pieces. Although this is not one of my best pieces it did sell quickly (the piece to the left). I really struggled with the template materials I used when air-brushing this one. It is a liquid mask that needs to be applied over a lacquer finish in order to peel it off. Well, let me tell you, if you don’t put enough on or do it properly you end up doing a lot of work to get it off. I would be I spent at least 8 hours scraping it off. It was a pain but a great learning experience. We have since learned to do a much better job of applying it and I have become much more comfortable spraying it free-hand. Although this piece is not one of our “Light Dancers” it does show the type of work I have started to do with the air-brush. As I said above we also like to leave some pieces just natural as the grain in the wood is just so fabulous – as in this Cheery piece that I did a while ago and the Yellow Poplar one I did at about the same time. The Cherry piece is about 14″ in diameter and the Yellow Poplar (apptly named Blackstreak) is about 16 1\2″ in diameter. As you can likely guess we just love doing these pieces. They are totally unique – I believe that we are the only woodturners in the world that are making these two-piece hollow-forms in to candle-holders. As we try to expand our line of candle-holder products I definitely want to try and learn to do these in a taller “vase like ” vessel but also made in to a “Light Dancer”. That should be a new challenge – one likely to take me many hours and pieces to perfect. Hey what else have I got to do. Can;t help it but I have to put one more air-brushed one on – it has a story as well. It was sent as the Chinook Woodturners Guild of Lethbridge, Alberta entry in to the “Turning 25 – A Celebration” exhibition and sale at the 25th annual National Symposium of the American Association of Woodturners”. Unfortunately it got broken during shipping – we found out that although one pays insurance on shipping a piece with UPS – because it is hand-made they won’t insure it. I couldn’t believe that they have been accepting money for insurance from us for over 10 years and yet the pieces were not really insured at all. How does that work – I ask you? At any rate, another lesson learned. These pieces will now be shipped in crates constructed of bomb proof material.

I must admit that when Dick Foreman of the Orange County Woodturners in California first contacted me about coming down to sunny California I was most pleased. After teaching many workshops in Alberta it was to be my first international experience. The tip down turned in to quite the story – guess where I am headed with this. The day before I was to fly out of Calgary, Alberta I travelled in to town to stay with my son and his family. The idea was to have a great afternoon and evening playing with my grandsons and visiting with Chris and Y0landa. I got to Chris’ place about 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon and thought it would be a great idea to check in with Delta. The first shock came when my passport was rejected – you are no longer allowed to leave Canada under a Canadian passport if it is within 90 days of expiry. Well guess what, mine was out by 89 days. So by this time it was about 5:30 and I was suddenly looking for a place that would take a passport photo for me – after a 4 hour search I finally found one so I returned to Chris’s place tired but somewhat relieved. I got up Monday morning at 5:30 so that I could get downtown to the passport office before 7AM so that I would be first in line when it opened at 7:30. I was greatly relieved when I walked out of the office with my passport about 10:30 – plenty of time to catch my flight at 2PM. I got to the airport, checked in, went through security and US customs. At 3PM Delta cancelled my flight and that is where the real fun began. Delta did not have any flights that would get me in to Long Beach in time to teach my class the next morning – we found one on Air Canada that would get me in to LAX at 11:30 PM – not ideal but it would work. I just faced a 5 hour wait – that in fact turned in to almost 6 hours by the time we de-iced the wings and took off. Talking to the supervisor from Delta, I said could you please go and get my bag so that I can check it in myself with Air Canada – he would not do that saying that it would get on the right plane and not to worry. Well guess what – it never did get on that plane and my turning tools were all in the bag. So I faced my first class the next morning needing to borrow tools to use. Fortunately, my bag was located and got to me in time for the afternoon. I got in to LAX at 12:30 only to drive to Orange County catch a few hours of sleep and then get up to teach. In the end, I taught two two-day workshops and then did a full day demo on the Saturday. Everyone seemed happy and I was thrilled with all of the new contacts I made and the good times I had while down there. It was my first trip to California and only a Canadian suffering from one of the coldest winters in many years could have been happier than me – I was able to wear shorts and a t-shirt all week. All the locals thought I was crazy. I was so impressed

Me turning a bowl during the demonstration Saturday

with the Orange County club and the tremendous job they do with their charity work. It is astounding how many pens they turn for US troups and the Flag day activities would have been fun to attend. I had a fabulous time and would like to thank the following  people Dick Foreman, Bruce Lewellyn and last but not least Victor Cohn and his wife Susan who so graciously hosted me for the entire week. It was a blast that I will remember forever. Thanks guys. Jim