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End-Grain Bowl
Cherry Wood with Maple Burl Base

As I started on this piece, I envisioned a different shape and design than what I ended up with. This often happens - allowing a form to go through a kind of metamorphosis as it is being worked with - which is why each piece I turn is one-of-a-kind. This particular piece of cherry has no anomalies or unusual characteristics, so as I started into the early turning phase of this piece, the fluidity of the grain took me to its current shape.

Once the bowl proper was completed I now needed a means to display it. In any woodworkers shop one can find various special pieces of unique forms just waiting for the right moment - hence came a maple burl base, enhanced and blackened on the edges with a blow torch. The bowl was embellished with a mixture of ebony and epoxy to seal off end grain stress cracks and ebony pins were employed to lock the bowl to the base.

This bowl was the only woodturning accepted to the 2003 Westminster College Juried Art Show.