Process of Making
Each leaf surface takes several hours to carve. I thought you might enjoy this fast forward video of the first pass of carving a single leaf (after all the roughing out was completed).
The soundtrack is Mashenguville Groove by Afriscapes (licensed from Audio Micro). Enjoy!
I've been working on a new carved leaf bowl for the past few weeks. The wall thickness was 1–1.5 inches, which gave me a lot of room with which to work. Here are some progress photos up to yesterday's work (3 Feb 2022).
I usually start a new project by thinking about it for awhile and then just jumping into the work. This piece took a different path. I started with a sketch of the overall piece and then worked on each element of the design, in sketches and then figuring out the logistics.
2021. Wood, turned and carved; acrylic paint; fused and sandblasted glass; blown and sculpted sandblasted glass; LEDs.
31.5 X 15.25 X 13 inches.
Side view
Back view
This is the most challenging piece I’ve ever done. The woodturning and carving were familiar and, aside from the design elements, straightforward. The leaf shape (patterned on a spathe in the Arum family) was my first challenge. I had to first make a clay texture mold in the shape of a leaf and bisque fire it. I’ve never done ceramics so this was a fun thing to learn. Then I had to cut two large leaf shapes out of sheet glass, fuse them in the kiln, and slump this onto the texture mold.
The gallery photos below have captions that you can see by hovering your mouse over the image.
Finished the rough layout.
Dried and ready for final shaping.
Ready for bisque firing
In the kiln for bisque firing.
Coated with kiln wash and ready for glass slumping.
Finding the right thickness and size of sheet steel.
Andrew Newbold, our studio coordinator, made my design come to life. First step is to cut out the shape with a plasma cutter.
The edges have to be smoothed with an angle grinder.
I wanted the leaf shape to have movement, so we took the sheet to the roller.
I wanted the leaf form to curl around the central column and have swept back edges. There was a lot of fine tuning here.
The shape works for me, and there’s a lot of different configurations possible for slumping glass.
I sandblasted the surface to give the kiln wash something to bind to.
The shape needed to be reinforced with a frame. This is another area for Andrew to work his magic.
My part was to cut steel rod into lengths that could be bent to fit the form.
The perimeter of the shape was reinforced with steel rod welded to the sheet metal.
Plasma welding!
Where the bend of the steel rod didn’t quite fit the profile, a small cut with an angle grinder can persuade it to work with the sheet steel.
Building the frame.
Finishing the frame.
Coated with kiln wash and awaiting the textured glass.
A comparison of the leaf form shape with the slumping mold.
This is what the leaf form looked like after slumping. The next step was to sandblast it.
The other glass element took myself and a team of seven assistants about 2.5 hours to make in the hot shop. That was then sandblasted after it came out of the annealer. Jonathan Capps was gaffer for the cylinder and then I took over the bench for the sculpting. My glass classmates were fantastic in helping me pull this off.
The only log section in my shop large enough for the base was a 20-year-old honey locust piece. Hard as concrete and cracking like crazy. Enough said… I don’t recommend this approach. I also turned a bowl for the top insert and a disk for the inset base (held by magnets).
This was a pretty hefty chunk of wood to turn…
I removed the bark before starting the rough out.
Once the log was trued into a cylinder, I started shaping the form.
The rough shape is similar to a djembe drum.
The piece was attached to the lathe via a faceplate. That was pretty secure and I was able to hollow the lower section.
After the lower section was hollowed and a recess made for the foot plate, I attached another faceplate to that end and turned it around to work on the top section. The only problem was that the top section was cracking like crazy. That’s a recipe for a disaster – one big catch and the piece could explode.
My solution was to duct tape the top section to make sure I could hollow it without the piece coming apart.
This is the final configuration of the top section. The small hole is 1.5 inches diameter, and it goes through the entire middle section.
The djembe drum shape would not resemble the stem of the Arum inflorescence so I had to finish the base form by carving. I started with a reciprocating hacksaw to remove most of the upper section. Then I roughed out where the sheath of the stem would overlap.
I wanted to do a test fit before finishing the carving. This is the first time the wood and glass were together.
The spathe is fit into the base in a carved area. The back of the spathe is supported by the back of the base where it has a point.
The spathe is fit into the base in a carved area. The back of the spathe is supported by the back of the base where it has a point.
I needed to turn a bowl for the inset that would help to brace the spathe (leaf form). This would need to be carved along with the rest of the base.
The top insert is attached to the base for carving.
Duct tape didn’t work very well, but I had a strap in my tool box that did the trick.
Detail of the sheath overlap.
The insert works well to stabilize the spathe.
I needed a disk that would fit at the base to hold everything together. This was attached using magnets.
Ready for painting. The light chamber was painted white.
Everything works together and it’s ready for painting.
The final step was to place LED strip lights in the light chamber and wire it. Right now the LEDs are powered by two 12V batteries daisy-chained together. A big thanks goes to Steven Sabin for helping with this step.
The lighting is soft and subtle. This sculpture is not meant to be a lamp, but it does have a lovely ambiance for relaxing in a comfortable room.
I did my WIT Presents session last Saturday. It was a lot of fun to put together my slide show and to think about my journey as an artist. One thing we sometimes forget as artists is that we all start from the same place. For woodturning that means that we learn how to use our tools, how to make beads and coves, how to turn that first bowl or hollow form, or whatever. After awhile the techniques we use in turning become second nature - we no longer have to think about how to make a cut, how the wood will behave, or how to achieve a pleasing form. Each day at the lathe brings new achievements and new challenges.
For those of us who develop a recognizable style of work, the primary challenge we face is how to continue to grow as an artist, to move beyond what we've done before but to still have a body of work that is recognized as our own.
I spent a lot of time in my presentation talking about how to find one's voice. I'll pass along the words of wisdom I gleaned from Jacques Vesery's AAW symposium rotations many years ago, and what I've incorporated into my own practice - "use what you know."
We all have unique life experiences, which sometimes include different ways of interpreting the world, or seeing patterns in nature, architecture, geometry, the human experience, etc. While some are content to imitate the works of artists they admire, most of those artists would probably prefer to not have their body of work copied. Many recognizable styles have been developed over the course of decades, by trial and error, and with lots of time invested in practice.
We have a sharing community. Artists teach or demonstrate techniques for an audience or a group of students all the time - it's one aspect of the work that creates a viable money stream. Woodworkers tend to follow step-by-step instructions published in magazines, on websites, or in videos, from live demonstrations, or from taking a class. It's only natural to want to create the works one admires. I will only point out that there is a real difference between technical ability, the craftsmanship of making, and artistic ability - that spark of creative energy that builds a unique and recognizable body of work. I believe that everyone who has technical ability has the potential to move beyond imitation of another's work. One only has to believe in one's self, and to explore the things that are unique to their experiences in life.
I really like the idea of art as a practice. To be competent, to develop creativity, to explore new design ideas, it really does take practice - hour upon hour upon hour..... it seems like forever. I find this aspect of making art the most rewarding.
If you'd like to see the video of my presentation, you can click here
One of the things that has happened during this pandemic tragedy is my branching out into experimenting with glass. This adventure started before the pandemic, as I was enrolled in a beginning glass class at Ohio State University. Part of this class was an introduction to glass blowing. We had half a semester before the university had to shut down due to a stay-at-home mandate that was initiated in early March.
With the university shut down the glass studio was closed and that was the end to glass blowing for the semester. We had just started to learn about warm glass techniques (e.g., glass fusing in a kiln) right before spring break (the university switched to online following spring break). I was able to borrow a small kiln to continue my exploration at home so I started to make 4X4 inch glass tiles for a remodeling project. I enjoyed glass fusing so much that I ordered a kiln for myself, which took nearly three months to receive because all the factories were closed during the early surge of the pandemic.
Once my kiln arrived I was able to make space in my detached garage for a glass workshop. I've been doing lots of fun things in glass, including a technique called "fossil vitra." This is essentially converting organic material into glass fossils. I've been playing with leaves and inflorescences. I really like the result of these experiments. (Check out my Etsy shop for my fused glass work: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtByAndiWolfe?ref=seller-platform-mcnav).
This semester I was able to enroll in another glass class at the university. The studio was able to implement safety protocols that allowed us to get back into the hot shop for glass blowing. I had a weekly blow slot to myself, which resulted in a lot of experimenting. One of those experiments is being used for a new piece that I'm working on for an AAW exhibit next summer. The exhibit is "Elements," and I'm one of the invited artists. For this piece I am combining woodturning and some glassblowing work. I have to say that I am really, really enjoying this work. I sketched out my idea, gave a lot of thought to what I wanted to make, and it's actually happening.
Small fossil vitra dish with Japanese maple leaves.
Small fossil vitra dish with Penstemon.
Elements–work-in-progress.
Elements–work-in-progress.
Elements–work-in-progress.
Elements–work-in-progress. I’ve started to fit my glass pieces to the woodturning.
Photos of how I make carved turnings…
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