History of woodturning

History of woodturning

At the beginning of the 20th century, the lathe was perhaps the last thing to be considered a tool for creating a bold new art form. Modern art was defined by experiments in painting and sculpture, not utility. Lathe work concerned woodworking and craft—worlds away from new art movements such as abstract expressionism and conceptualism. At the same time, the Arts & Crafts Movement had created a romantic and idealistic view of the craftsperson, in opposition to the “soulless” machine production of the Industrial Revolution. The lathe was a machine closely tied to industry and showed no promise as a means of self-expression. Despite these challenges, artistic woodturning grew organically out of the woodworking traditions and the cultural milieu of the 20th century.

Today artistic woodturning is an international phenomenon. While almost every country had some form of woodturning tradition, its exploration as a means of self-expression can largely be traced to artists working in North America. The apprentice system that had been established in Europe had initially flourished in the United States, though everyone worked with wood to some extent in the pioneering years. Perhaps due to the independent spirit of this new nation, within a century of its founding, traditional apprenticeships were in decline. To fill the void, industrial arts education increasingly became part of every high school education, as experience with tools and machines such as the lathe were vital in educating workers who could develop careers in engineering, design, or factory work.

Pioneers

Woodturning hobbyists emerged largely from the period of prosperity that followed World War II, which led to the production of low-cost lathes with instructional books and magazines. Finding it an agreeable pastime, individuals across the country, who had initially been exposed to the lathe in high school, began creating functional objects at home. Among these individuals were the pioneering artists in the field of artistic woodturning.

The journies of five artists—James Prestini, Bob Stocksdale, Melvin Lindquist, Rude Osolnik and Ed Moulthrop—illustrate the currents leading to development of the field of artistic woodturning.

1940s: James Prestini’s wooden bowls first established woodturning as a serious artistic endeavor.

James Prestini

James Prestini’s exploration of woodturning was directly influenced by the wave of European artists, architects and craftsmen who moved to the US during World War II. Among these were the founders of Germany’s Bauhaus, a school that sought to unify art, craft and technology. Unlike the proponents of the Arts & Crafts Movement, these individuals viewed the machine in a positive light and industrial design and product development were pursued. The New Bauhaus was established in Chicago and it was here that Prestini came to know and be influenced by Mies van der Rohe, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer. Though these individuals were often at odds with each other, they all embraced the Bauhaus aesthetic of accomplishing the most with the least—an approach that Prestini took to heart in turning wood bowls.

Prestini’s exploration of woodturning was short lived, from 1933 to 1953, while also creating sculptural work in wood, and before moving to other mediums including marble and metal. Nevertheless he set a standard for excellence in woodturning and, with the presentation of his work in a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1949, established the validity of the wood bowl as an art object.

1940s: Prestini worked with a metal lathe. Its gear-driven tool post gave him mechanical control of the forms he created.

1948: Thin and light turned wooden bowls by James Prestini.

Bob Stocksdale

World War II impacted Bob Stocksdale’s life differently. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was drafted. In an environment of fervent patriotism, Stocksdale chose to be conscientious objector and was sent to work at a camp in Michigan under the auspices of the United States Forest Service. After the Forest Service learned that he was a woodworker, he was taken to Forest Service headquarters and shown what he later described as “the most beautiful wood-working shop that you could imagine, with all kinds of tools and everything, and nobody to run them.”

Stocksdale was put in charge of the facility and one day tried turning a bowl on the lathe. The results led him to make more and he eventually began to market bowls through a small shop in Ohio, being given only the condition that he “keep up the quality.” Ultimately, Stocksdale created a new approach to woodturning by simply replacing the glaze of ceramic tea bowls from Japan and other Asian countries with the pattern and figure of wood. The path of anti-war sentiments leading to a life as a woodturner would ultimately play out among the next generation of pioneering woodturners.

Along with his unerring eye for form and wood figure, Bob Stocksdale was first to perfect the method of retaining the natural surface of the log as the rim of his turned bowl. This required perfectly sharp tools, and impeccable technique.

 Like Prestini, Stocksdale was renowned for his ability to turn bowls with coin-thin walls, the inside perfectly echoing the outside.

Rude Osolnik

Rude Osolnik began his career teaching at Berea College in Kentucky, which offered students from the Appalachian region a unique work program. The school’s first work/study program was established in 1896, born out of the recognition of the quality of regional handcrafts that reflected the traditions of early European settlers. While teaching at the college and overseeing its woodshop, Osolnik began to create turned wood objects as a means of earning extra money, before serving as an officer in the Navy following the outbreak of World War II.

Returning home, Osolnik continued to expand the industrial arts program at the school, while creating turned wood pieces on the side. He became active in the Southern Highland Handicrafts Guild, selling work in the Guild’s craft fairs and in local shops. Soon, "Osolnik Originals" was a successful cottage industry, bearing the influence of Appalachian crafts and Scandinavian design.

1960s: Along with his gifts as a teacher, Rude Osolnik was a tireless innovator and a masterful technician at the lathe. He was able to find beauty in such humble materials as plywood, and equally able to create beauty in such simple shapes as candlesticks.

1970s: In company with other industrial designers, Rude Osolnik explored the possibilities in manufactured materials such as plywood, here glued together to create the blank for a bowl made of many layers of wood.

Melvin Lindquist

Mel Lindquist began turning wood as a child, using an old lathe on the family farm, and in high school continued to explore the lathe in wood shop class. The war years were spent as a surveyor for the military in Alaska, where he developed a passion for the natural world, leading him to purchase 100 acres of land in the Adirondacks. It was here that he came to have a deep love of wood in its natural state—seeing the natural beauty in the diseased and storm-damaged trees he cut down on his land. With an approach worthy of the American Transcendentalists, he viewed the wood he salvaged as a gift from the forest.

Getting his degree as an aeronautical engineer, Mel went to work as a master machinist for General Electric, operating a vertical turret lathe. Becoming quality control manager for the company, Lindquist’s days were spent making sure that tolerances were kept within a few thousandths of an inch. To unwind, he enjoyed turning wood in the evening, which allowed him absolute creative freedom. Yet, seeing the beauty in the spalted wood he found on his property led him to draw upon his experience in engineering and machining to develop carbon-tipped tools and techniques for blind boring. It was in this manner that the field of artistic woodturning has grown ever since, simultaneously expanding on both the aesthetic and technical

1950–1970: Melvin Lindquist discovered that he could turn bowls and vases from wood that everyone else deemed worthless. He popularized ‘spalted’ wood from downed trees where fungi have overlaid the natural figure with a network of fine black lines, almost as if drawn in ink.

Ed Moulthrop

Ed Moulthrop was eight years old when he came across a magazine advertisement for a lathe. He took a job delivering newspapers and magazines to earn the $18 dollars it cost, and over the next several years created small objects he gave to family members as Christmas presents. Following in his father’s footsteps, Moulthrop became an architect, as woodturning showed little potential as a means of making a living.

“In those days… I think the crafts like woodturning and woodworking furniture weren’t well known,” he later recalled. “In fact, I think in the early 30s… America was in a rejection period of handmade things.”

While teaching architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Moulthrop began using the school’s industrial arts shop, and eventually built a small shed on the side of the shop, to explore woodturning. An article in Popular Mechanics on the military’s use of polyethylene glycol to stabilize wood led him to experiment with the material, which allowed him to turn large forms that worked well in interior design. Architects including Moulthrop’s hero Frank Lloyd Wright and Arts & Crafts era architects Greene & Greene had promoted the importance of the objects that fit into their homes. This influence led Moulthrop to create work with a conscious exploration of space and placement.

Living with Wood Art

1970s: Ed Moulthrop, an architect in Atlanta, perfected a process for replacing the water in fresh sawn wood with a waxy chemical called polyethylene glycol. This permitted him to turn hollow wooden forms of unprecedented size that did not crack and break. The orbs flanking the chair are by Ed Moulthrop and his son Philip: the three forms in the background were made by Philip. The angular turning in the left foreground is by Stoney Lamar. This is the living room of Arthur and Jane Mason, major collectors of turned wood art and leading members of the Collectors of Wood Art, and AAW honorary lifetime members, 2005.

Studio Movement

The stories of these five woodturners reflect the currents  that shaped the field during these pivotal years: the impact of World War II on the individuals and the influx of artists from Europe, a modernist embrace of the machine in creating work, the legacy of the Arts & Crafts movement, the impact of Asian design, folk craft traditions handed down by early settlers, industrial arts, craft guilds, Scandinavian design, engineering, publications such as Popular Mechanics and architecture. It was all thrown into the mix during a period of economic recovery following the war when individuals sought out their destinies in an ever-changing landscape where any path could show promise.

Of course, woodworking was just one of many material disciplines redefining itself. What has become known as the American studio craft movement grew out of earlier European craft movements, indigenous arts,and ritual objects. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, craft objects had been part of daily life. Following it, artists working in craft media worked in reaction, either by offering an antidote to mass-produced objects or by commenting upon modern life.