The President’s Challenge for April was adding resin to your turned piece. Although there were a few entries, they were all very stunning. There was one piece that stood out above the rest, it was a Black Walnut Platter with a resin rim with black walnut shell inlay. The shells are thinly sliced and in order for them to not float to the top of the resin, are glued into the groove and resin added. I have to tell you that the artist is none other than lifetime woodturner, Bob Sievers. I asked Bob how long he has been turning wood and he said ‘forever’; he started turning in high school and has turned every day up until late 2019, he still turns today, just not as often. If you have paid attention in our show-and-tell over the years you can see that Bob is a very talented artist.
Bob came to the Pacific Northwest from Minnesota in 1958 to work at Boeing where he worked for 34 years and has been retired for 31 years so that really is a lifetime of woodturning, I would say over 65 years. WOW! Although he has been a member of the SPSW from the inception as an original member, he has been an ardent supporter of the club and brings his artistry every month he is in attendance.
Elizabeth Webber is an award-winning local woodturning artist, living in Seattle. She is a co-founder and member of the Seattle Spoon Club, a carving group in town. Additionally, she currently serves as the President of the Seattle Woodturners. We are fortunate to have her as our April demonstration guest demonstrating advanced embellishment techniques for wooden bowls during her Carving A Wave/Leaf Motif Bowl demonstration for our next SPSW club meeting, April 18th, 2024. Elizabeth has a robust diversity of skills that she draws on to create her unique works of art.
Additional examples of her work may be found on Instagram (@icosa_woodworks), as well as in the fabulous article, Immersed in Community: Elizabeth Weber’s Creative Journey written by Elizabeth’s friend and fellow member of the Seattle Woodturners, Randi Aiken in the February volume of American Woodturner. You can read highlights from Randi’s article in this month’s newsletter.
Like many woodturners, I was exposed to a lathe briefly in high school. It was fun to use the different tools and start to understand how they worked. I moved on in life and didn’t start seriously turning until about 8 years ago.
Over the years I have made lighthouses, hollow forms, bottle stoppers, etc. Two lathes later and I don’t know how much money I have spent; I have settled on making mainly bowls. Each piece of wood presents its own challenges and opportunities as I create a variety of sized and styled pieces.
We are so excited to tell you about our January President’s Challenge recipient, Ethan Green. As we have had the pleasure to see some beautiful pieces of art he has brought to our show-and-tell last year, the most memorable to date, the rose root ball vase. In January, the President’s Challenge was a square rimmed bowl. All of the submissions were stunning but there was one bowl that stood out above the rest, a beautifully mastered work of art made from Big Leaf Maple with extraordinary fiddleback with spalting and a gentle curve leading into a bowl. Stunning for the eye, inspired by the works of Richard Raffan, The Art of Turned Bowls and his information about curves; using a catenary curve for his bowl you can see it looks like a bowl in a bowl as the edges gently curve upwards with a bowl in the center with a walnut oil finish.
I learned about Fiber Reactive Dyes as a Textile Arts Major in college, using them extensively to study and understand color and what role that plays in the design process. After graduation from the University of Washington, I went back to college, getting myself an Industrial Engineering degree. I worked at Boeing, including several years in the Development Center and Paint Hangars, and went to school to learn how to use a paint sprayer and how to paint airplanes. When I pursued my engineering degree, I never imagined that my art background would be such an integral part of my thinking and enable me to be a better engineer. The combination of art and engineering makes me very inspired to make beautiful pieces of art while considering fit, form and function in every aspect of development.