Musing in defense of the turned wood bowl

Arch,

I do agree with you on this. A lot of turners use the term "hollow form" to define a multitude of shapes and many use "bowl" to define those same shapes/forms. If I can't put Cheerios in it, it's not a bowl. If I could put flowers in it, it's a vase; aka hollow form. There are some pieces in the artistic turning books that make me think "I must be missing something here" because I don't see where there's more than 2% actual turning done. I guess if the piece is mounted on the lathe and touched with a gouge, it must be a wood turning.

I totally agree with your believe that turners do not "progress" from bowls to hollow forms, spindle to faceplate turning; rather they "expand" their abilities. The word 'progress' has come to mean improving (probably thanks to politicians of all levels!) however, if you are on the wrong path but keep going, it's still 'progress'..........just in the wrong direction. Starting out with bowl turning, I later developed my spindle turning ability; did I 'regress'? : )

Ruth and The ?

Arch,

St. Benedict said the problem with making rules is that you then have to figure out a way to get around them. Or somethiing like that. Some of the pieces in the book obviously made you think about what makes a bowl a bowl. Everyone needs to have their presumptions poked with a stick now and then, even if they still come to the same conclusion.

And the title of the book is "500 Wood Bowls," not "500 Turned Wood Bowls."

Clay (an interloper with no name)

Let's not confuse "progress" with change. Not all change is progress. I know that from my own personal experience. Trust me on this one.

Barry

Ruth & Clay, Your posts are always thoughtful and much appreciated. My musings are meant to stimulate courteous debate and opinion and not meant to be 'ex cathedra' nor as mean and divisive trolls. I always hope my posts will pry up lots of lively give and take re woodturning. Sometimes that doesn't happen and I'm left to wonder if I missed the mark or if this ng needs or even wants these sorts of threads. There I go, musing again!

Clay, you are no interloper. You have a name and it's a good one. I meant that the work, not the turners, might fly under false colors and deserve a flag of their own. I was musing about the _turned wood bowl and should have taken more care not to appear critical of the book's editors or the artisans. Didn't St. Benedict say that fine wood bowls can be made off the lathe without recourse to turning at all? :) Anyway, I'm too myopic about my hobby,

Regards to the both of you, Arch

Fortiter,

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net (Arch) wrote in news:15175-4132233B-46@storefull-

Here's one vote for "keep 'em coming"!

LD

Arch, I love to read your posts. They get you thinking.

Jim

Arch,

Your musings are the posts I'm most likely to read. I know they are always offered with the best of intentions. You are a gentle person who has devoted his life to healing rahter than hurting, even though sometimes the two are inextricably linked.

Let me tell you why I responded.

It has been a long time since I was invloved in the AAW, but when I was on the board of directors, there was a sizeable portion of the general membership who were quite vocal in their belief that if it wasn't round and brown then it wasn't woodturning and it shouldn't be in the symposium instant gallery, it shouldn't be in the American Woodturner, it shouldn't be in the books. Fortunately their formulas for determining what was woodturning and what wasn't always excluded someone's work they liked, so no rules were ever instituted. The work of people like Ray Allen, Ron Fleming, and Max Krimmel are good examples of who would have been excluded under "percentages" or materials definitions.

We do need definitions for the purposes of facile communication, and maybe that's more what you meant in your post. It just makes me nervous when I see people fishing near the shoals of secterianism. In the long run, the excluders are the ones who get cheated out of the most.

And in the words of St. Arnold, "I think I'll have another beer."

Clay

Good luck mate.

There's some evil ideology creeping in here:)

Is it important for the objects we make to be categorised? The idea certainly has its merits: for competitions, for communication, for marketing, to name a few. But will it not stifle creativity if we can only make things that fit in a well defined category? Getting back to Arch's books, presumably you bought them to garner inspiration and get new ideas for that absolutely awesome bowl you always wanted to make? So why not challenge your narrow view of what it is to be 'bowl'?

We all have our personal opinions and what it is that attracts us to turned wood. My pet dislike is painted turnings, since for me woodturning is largely about the material and its inherent beauty. I see no point in working with what is not always the easiest of materials to work with, then covering it with paint. Surely there are other more appropriate materials to use? But that is my personal preference and viewpoint, and if someone else wants to take that route it is fine by me. If I ever buy a woodturning book and find pictures of painted pieces in there will I be disappointed? Well, maybe, but on the other hand it might inspire me to do something with that grotty looking lump of blue-stained red maple thats been getting closer to the firewood pile for the past year or so.

Arch This is a cool question/topic. When is abowl not a bowl? My kids have learned the old saw "if it does not hold water it's art." Is a burled bowl with negative space, i.e. holes, still a bowl. I think so. It has a bowl like shape. How about a vessel wit incurving sides but a large opening in the top? It will still hold the potatoe chips but it might seem more like a hollow form or vase. How elingated must a piece be before it changes in name from a hollow form to a vase? As I look at what I turn from the faceplate I categorize the shapes generally as platters, bowls, vases, hollow forms, and other. I know I have a criterion but I am not always sure of what it is.

Hello there Arch, and all, this is another one off those "musings" that I read and grin about, yes I think we all have that question sometimes, what is this? a bowl or what? and when someone else does not go by our criteria then we might think BS that's a bowl, or that's not a bowl. And like Darrell says where do you draw the line. Last time our local turners chapter had a contest, the challenge was to make a bowl with no dimension to exceed 4" (it must go through a 4" hole), some members brought what I would call a box but then it's a bowl with a lid for others, so you see we do not all go by the same criteria. But if a customer asks me for a bowl I will not give him a platter (G) I know the difference!!

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Darrell Feltmate wrote:

I would say that turned objects must be turned and not have an "entirely carved" finish. If you take a vessel and carve and sand a conch shell out of it and no part of the outside is turned, I would call it a carving and not a turning. The lathe was merely a tool used to preshape a blank for carving.

Arch

When I reflect upon my personal work, I see those pieces that have a deep recess with an upper lip wider than the base as a bowl. If there is a reverse of the main curve, or an upper lip that is smaller than the base, I call that a vase or jar. If someone like Frank Sudol wants to call his "Ribbons Series" a series of bowls, then who am I to disagree - I call them vases, but alas, my vocabulary is rather limited.

Ray