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woodturnings

Opening July 10th at the Manitou Springs Business of Art Center, ‘3 Ladies from Aspen’ will join dozens of other woodturnings by the members of the Pikes Peak Woodturners.

Figurative work is relatively rare in the woodturning world, with the exception of the nested and painted Russian dolls known as matroshki.  My interest in turning figures evolved from a snowman Christmas ornament–three turned spheres with an offset top hat.  I elongated the form, feminized it, and rotated the holding point in the base off-center to create a sense of movement.  The vertical figure in the Colorado aspen shows to good advantage in the lengthwise dimension, giving another meaning to the concept of ‘figure.’

The hats are turned from contrasting scraps of cedar, burl, and canary wood, and glued on at an angle.  The tallest figure is 10.5 inches.