Ashley Harwood

Well, I got started in woodturning, actually my father got me interested in it. He's a woodturner. He enjoys it as a hobby. And he signed me up for a class. We took a class together in North Carolina at John C. Campbell Folk School. That was about three years ago. It was a bowlturning class, a week-long bowlturning class. After that, I applied to the Charleston Farmer's Market, and I got accepted. And I thought, wow, now I really need to make a whole lot of stuff. I also applied for a grant and received a grant from the Coastal Community Foundation to get started in building up my studio and some of that initial investment. When I needed a lathe, I contacted the instructor for that bowlturning class. He actually lives out in Portland, Oregon. And I asked him what he recommended, what type of lathe he recommended. And, of course, I needed something inexpensive, just getting started as an artist. And he put me in touch with a man that lives in New Orleans. His name is Gorst. Now, Gorst first got interested in turning. His first lessons were in South Africa, and he was taught by a German prisoner of war. He's a radiologist. He lives on the end of Bourbon Street. And I think he had 10 or 12 lathes. This particular lathe, he'd only used once. He got it to turn a 35-inch bowl or some ridiculously huge thing, and he didn't use it anymore. It sat underneath his house. And it took about a week for me to get the parts turning again, but I got it turning. Gorst said to me, he said, Now, you know you owe me a bowl. And when you get home, or when you get good, then you owe me another one. That was the deal. Well, so far I've started with just a solid piece of wood and turned the rough outside shape of the bowl. This won't be a final finished turning, but it's just getting the general shape. I left a tenon on the bottom, which I used to grip the bowl with the chuck. So with the bowl mounted in the chuck on the tenon, I'm now going to turn the inside of the bowl and take out all of that extra wood that we don't need in here. So that's going to leave us about a 12-inch bowl. With rough turning, you want to leave it thick. And once I'm finished rough turning a bowl, I coat it in wax to slow the drying process. And to be totally cured, a bowl could be drying for several months to a year, depending on the type of the wood, the size of the bowl, drying conditions, and everything else. It's not an exact science. It's almost an art in itself, being able to cure the wood properly. It is now the middle of April, and this bowl has been curing since New Year's Eve. That's when it was rough turned. I always date the bowls on the outside. I write what type of wood it is and where it came from. This is white oak that came from North Charleston. You can see how much it's moved already, and it's not completely done. So it's going to elongate along the length of the tree, and then also what would be the center of the tree actually comes up. So in the end, you have a football shape. Now once this piece of wood is completely cured, then I put it back on the lathe for finish turning. I turn the whole thing again, and that's when it gets sanded, and it becomes nice and soft and beautiful and pretty, and ready to go on your table.