What I love about woodturning is the way the wood reveals itself as I work. Michelangelo is reputed to have said in answer to the question about how he created his famous statue of David from a block of marble, “I just cut away everything that wasn't David, and there he was.” I imagine it's debatable whether or not Michelangelo actually said that, and I am certainly not comparing myself to him, but I feel similarly about working with wood. As I ‘turn” a log or block of wood over and over again in my hands I begin to feel what it might become. Then, as I actually begin to turn the wood on my lathe and the grain, the spalting, and the “flaws” of the wood are revealed, I feel as if the soul of the wood is coming out. In all of my work, I try not to get in the way of the spirit of the wood.

I fell in love with woodturning in 2001 when I saw the work of Alan Hollar in the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, North Carolina. I have since studied with Willard Baxter and Bobbie Clemons at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, (where I now teach) as well as with David Ellsworth, Al Stirt, Doug Barnes, Dick Sing, Christian Burchard, Cindy Drozda, Alain Mailland, and the very Alan Hollar whose work inspired me to take up the art of woodturning in the first place. I was a librarian for 42 years and recently retired as director of the Alexandria Library.