This woodturning hobby is kinda fun!  The more I do of it, the more I’m starting to understand that it really does take a split personality to be successful.  One part of your mind has to always be thinking about the tool in your hand.  This is the technical part.  The part that tells you to speed up or slow down the lathe, which chisel/scraper/gouge to use, and eventually allows your fingers to be used as consistently accurate calipers to gauge wall thickness.  When making something, this is the part that generally consumes the vast majority of whatever gray matter I have that’s not already devoted to breathing and standing upright.  Another personality is the artistic side.  This is the side that can look at something and realize that the bowl’s too fat or too tall, that the embellishment doesn’t look “right”, or that the overall piece is just plain icky.  Maybe this can be taught, but I suspect some people have a more innate ability to see this stuff than others.  Being able to listen to both personalities is, in my humble opinion, what separates an average turner from a good or great turner.  I think I’m becoming a good turner.

Then there the last tiny little sliver that comes into the mix.  I’ll call it creativity, but I’m not sure that’s the right word.  Others call it having a muse.  It’s being able to look at a block of wood and seeing something to make.  It’s the mental glue that  ties the technical and artistic sides together.  It’s that intangible “thing” that separates a good or great turner from an artist.  I’m convinced this can’t be taught, it’s just somewhere that lurks in a the back of a person’s brain and was likely put there in the womb.  (I also suspect that there are those who are born with this ability, but with the right negative reinforcement as a very young child, it can be killed or locked away to prevent the child from being too far off the anticipated path to financial success.) I’m not claiming to be an artist, I’m no where near that level!  I still have a workshop, not a studio, I don’t create names for what I create that convey some hidden meaning, and I absolutely hate talking with other artists who spend more time talking about their motivation to make the piece than the actual piece itself.

This little project, however, is most likely the closest I’ve come to actually having a muse whisper.  This started as a plain, cherry bowl blank that I had made up as turning fodder for a class I was teaching at my son’s high school.  when I put it on the lathe, the technician in me was intending to make a small, plain, bowl about a quarter inch thick.  It would be good practice.  The artistic side was already offering up ideas for wood burning designs and was pushing hard for a particular pattern inside the bottom, covered in clear colored epoxy.  (I might still get to that project at some point…)  I put the headphones on (which is something I usually don’t do while turning) and quickly roughed out the blank.  It was taller than it should have been for a simple bowl, so the technician inside me changed the plan to make a box.  It would be a taller box, with a flat, inset let on the very top, and it would be sanded to 2000 grit.  The artistic part decided it would have zentangle patterns added, then colored with India ink and perhaps embossed with colored epoxy putty.

As I started to work on the shape, the song “Return to Pooh Corner” by Kenny Loggins came on and I will admit, my mind drifted.  It drifted a LOT!  Before I knew or consciously realized what I was doing, I looked at what was spinning on the lathe in front of me and realized the shape of a hunny pot was staring back at me.  I turned the lathe off and just looked at what I had done, stunned.  The technician said, “ok, well if you’re changing the plan on me, then we need to clean up the cove , get started on a recess for the lid and figure out what tool to use for the hollowing”.  The artistic side had already jumped to a potential process for adding fake honey drips.  The muse just giggled and said, “put the song on repeat.  You and Kenny aren’t done, yet”.

Not to sound all new-age-whack-job, but this was a completely different experience than I’ve had from any other turning that I’ve made.  It’s both exciting and somehow unnerving to realize that my mind “wandered much further today than I should” while I was using a power tool.  That could have been disastrous!  It was also kind of unsettling that as soon as I realized the shape I was looking at was a honey pot, I instantly knew exactly how the final product would look, from the finish on the wood, to the fake honey drops, to where the fake bees would need to be added.

Don’t think I’ll be giving this one away or selling it anytime soon.  This one is different, somehow.