I posted the essentials of these thoughts as as answer to a question, but I meant it to be a can opener for general discussion. I got no response, so I'll toss out a thread and hope for your pros & cons.
We have long overcome the bias against making objects that incorporate methods and media that go beyond turning wood. Painting, burning, carving, wiring and other decorating techniques are now commonplace and IMO, our craft/art is the better for them.
What we haven't done to the same extent is to integrate with workers of other crafts/arts; joining woodturning with welding, potting, machining, soldering, engraving, chasing, sculpting and so on.
I believe that incorporating differing media and methods, not just as decorations but as separate disciplines, is a untapped potential for easing the crafting and expanding the artistry of turned wood.
Please agree or disagree (not too violently G). Also please offer your solution to the dangers of 'craft isolation' and 'in breeding'. Or do I perceive a risk what ain't there and don't need fixing, no-how. :)
although i'm a beginner; i've already started exploring the boundaries. years ago I took a couple of classes in metal sculpture and am now trying to marry those techniques with turning and eventually with carving. i've already tried turning and carving...it was fun and the piece i made was challenging. i made some mistakes with it and one design mistake, but now i have a better idea on the design and so will make the next project even harder so to keep myself challenged. It will be similar to a turned bedpost knob, hollowed out into spirals (probably 8 twists) with larger spaces between each twist so that i can carve a figure trapped inside the cage of spirals. i think i'll make a metal knob for the top. i have no clue as to what it will be used for...probably nothing. it's just going to be a challenge for me to make. i don't think i'd ever make a good "artist"/"sculptor", but i'll have fun along the way to whatever i become. rich
I disagree with your premise that multiple crafts/art forms haven't been merged. Ron Gerton and Christian Burchard come to mind as turners using metal. Bruce Campbell in Vancouver is doing work with ceramics. I'm even collaborating with a ceramic artist right now. I've seen textiles, leather, beads, metal, ceramics and even a bit of glass.
My response to your post is: mixing it up is good. I believe the end result, whether functional, artistic, or both, determines the means to get there. If mixed media is required, so be it. Joe Fleming - San Diego
hmmm..I guess anything that makes pretty stuff is fair game if you want to be an 'artist', but I think of myself as a woodturner, and will leave the experimenting mostly to others. I am totally hooked on wood in its myriad variations, and have barely begun to discover what a tree will give me. I can imagine using a bit of leather lacing to 'bind' a crack, or a bit of inlay of a different material, but it would have to NEED it. I don't even have an urge to do segmented turnings...I admire them, but am more interested in what the tree has to offer, than what I can force the tree to become.
Good thing we don't all do exactly the same thing, hmmm....*smile*?
Arch I like to look at what people do with stuff. A friend who is a potter amazes me with the clays and glazes she uses and the forms she makes. Mostly she does utilitarian stuff but it has a beauty to it that transcends the shape or has the beauty partly because of the utilitarian shape. Nice work. A glass worker I know does fused glass work that is a thing of beauty as well. I traded a piece of wood with a friend who is a metal worker. My wife now has a piece of art that is made up of bent and welded railroad spikes. this is usually the sort of thing that makes me wonder where the art world lost its mind and its taste, but this really works. the piece is called praise and it has form and movement and substance. I can see this coming together with wood to make a new craft or art statement. It opens up for me the old question of what is art. Much of what I see called art is at best artistry or very good craftmanship. Some is downright bad work. My wife and I watch the home improvement channel at times. She loves home decorating. Some of what designers do may be "called" art, but it is usually ugliness with a dash of conceit and a lack of listening to the persons who will live with the stuff. I like to turn wood as wood. Sometimes a bit of pyrography or texturing or dye, but mostly wood on its own in pretty classic forms. It brings a comfort and stability to my understanding of the world. I also like to look at what other people do with wood and other materials and sometimes blending them together. But I tell you, some of the collaborative work I have seen in the magazines looks like eccentric turning, burning and painting for the sake of doing it, not for any sense of taste in form, motion or color. People like Andi Wolfe restore my faith that people can cut and color a piece of wood and make it into art that begs to be held and admired for a well thought out expression of a person's being.
I was corrected on the Walnut gloat response etiquite in the thread - however, I live in an area where walnut trees frequently go begging for takers - winding up in the dump as 8 inch slices of trash - so sad. So when he said that I was shocked and dismayed. If it were sugar maple that was being gloated over, then I guess I would be the envious one!
Saw that. Location, location, location, as they say. Hard maple is abundant here. As a matter of fact, I just put a chunk split from a 10" log into the furnace about an hour ago. 73 in the house, and warm enough in the basement for me to turn another of its cousins into a salad bowl.
Walnut isn't common until you get about 300 miles south....
Don't know if you're after collaborative pieces or utilizing materials and techniques from other disciplines.
The problem with the latter is the knowledge and skills in multiple disciplines. To get really good in just one, say turning - spindle or chucked - takes a bit of practice to say nothing of the chunks of change - or your own time - to buy or make the tools and equiptment to expand the limits of turning. Get into another discipline and you need more time, money and experience to get good at it. Ceramic turning requires a completely different set of skills and knowledge than wood turning. Get into casting and things get even trickier - and more expensive (priced bronze lately?) And if you get into welded pieces the element of fire makes a turning catch look trivial - molten metal continues burning well below the surface of the skin (try some overhead gas welding some time).
By being barely adequate in two or more disciplines - and combining things from each - typically produces a piece that is crappy from both perspectives.
Case in point
I knew and "artist" who not only got into every medium / discipline she could find - AND taught things she knew very little about. She "taught" a lost wax casting jewelry class (a discipline I know a lot about) and encouraged her students to cast just about anything that'd burn and only then - decide on how to make the results "art".
Because she knew only the rudiments of lost wax casting, the resulting castings were pitted and porous and impossible to get even a decent finish on. Her solution - strap the crappy casting to a rail road rail - and have a train run over it! Pop rivet the results onto a belt and you've got an "artsy" buckle. Drill a hole in it and hang it on a chain and it's a necklace. Glue some feathers and tumble stone on it - along with a pin and clasp and it's a pin.
I put "stithced together" pieces in this "approach" to creating "art".
On the other hand, during the Art Nouveau period, artists combined casting with glass - Rene Lalique was a master at mixed mediums - horn, glass, silver and gold, precious and semi-precious stones - and yes, even wood. He did furniture that combined turning, carving and inlaying, with lost wax cast elements as well.
F.L. Wright is a prime example of the dangers of mixing disciplines. His roofs leaked and structures are a maintenance nightmare and his chairs don't even look comfortable, let alone actually comfortable to sit on. His concepts where interesting. His execution left much to others to make work.
I guess I'm questioning the distinction between "craft" and "art". Seems to merely be a marketing ploy - to get Mo' MONEY! MO' MONEY! M O' M O N E Y !!!!!!
Studio Turners - BS!
The difference between a decent craftsman and an "artist" is the degree to which one is willing to be a self promoter, or pay someone to do it.
Better to be really good at a few things than barely adequate at a lot of things.
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