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charlieb · Guest

Yesterday, after an hour at the Dontist (no, that's not a misspelling
of "dEntist" - "dOntists" are the Formula One drivers of dentistry),
and in a Vicodin induced state, I spent several hours exploring the
Association of American Woodturners (AAW) site - specifically the
Galleries dating back to 1987. It was astounding how this area of
woodworking has evolved in just 20 years. From familiar plates
and bowls, it's gone in so many different directions, many of which
seem impossible, if not flat out crazy. And since turning seems
to be a pretty crazy thing to do to begin with - "take this sharp
piece of steel and poke it into that spinning chunk of wood", you
have to do something really insane to meet my "crazy" criteria.

If "thinking outside the box" means not being constrained by
"convention", there are turners thinking "out of this world"
Now I'm not talking about Star Trek's "Going where no one's
gone before" - but going to a "there" where you couldn't even
imagine a "there" there.

So my (rhetorical) question is:

In the turning world / solar system / galaxy / universe
how the hell can I "think outside the box"
when
there doesn't seem to be a "box"?

Check out where the links on this page take you
and poke around for a while - say two or three
HOURS. If you're looking for a Muse - I'm betting
she's hiding in there somewhere.

http://www.woodturner.org/gallery/

Fun this woodworking thing - and turning is
The Funnest (sp?).

charlie b

Arch · Guest

Hi Charlie, It's not only the "Turning - Thinking Outside The Box" that
overwhelms us. It's also the exaggerated hyperbole from outer space and
beyond that some wood artists use to describe themselves, their sacred
missions and their venerated art. Issued from an atelier-studium
somewhere in a new universe on the other side of a black hole, these
turnings leave us amazed and confused, hopeless in our futile attempts
to understand their meaning. For all we crafters know, the message may
as well have been sent in a string of mathematical symbols in Morse
code.

Forget those hackneyed rallying calls about the eye of the beholder and
all that. "If you crafters understand it, it's not art". That's the
condescension of some elite and enlightened wood artists of today. I
realize of course, that we all must try to advance the craft and make it
art, but is it an advance when a pedantic artist advances so far out
that he becomes in our guarded murmurings, just another laughing stock?

Rhetorically speaking and musing in my own hyperbole, whatever goes
around comes around and whatever's turned outside the box turns around.
Good looking bowls and handsome candle sticks are gonna rise again. Just
you wait and see, Mr. B.

Forget my hyperbole, Charlie. I Hope that toothache is long gone.

Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter

http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings