Late breaking info that you will also see in this month’s newsletter. Here is the list for what to bring to the potluck on the 15th:
For the pot luck dinner, members
with Last names starting with the letters:
A through F bring a Salad
G through P bring a Dessert
Q through Z bring a Main Dish.
Here’s another show and tell photo, this one from August, 2022. This one is a bowl turned from Horse Chestnut by SPSW member JoAnn Amberg.
Here is a walnut and maple segmented bowl turned by SPSW member Don Mars shown at our October Show and Tell.
Here is a natural edge maple bowl turned by SPSW member Steve Miner shown at our November Show and Tell.
I began turning wood in Junior High School. While visiting an uncle in Southern California he noticed my excitement about wood turning and he gave me a lathe that he never used. With paper route earnings I purchased tools from Sears and my dad and I began turning on our midsized lathe.
After seeing pens in a woodworking store in Port Townsend I said to my wife “I could make that!” Years later I wandered into a store and discovered pen kits and asked how to make them. The owner gave me a three minute lesson and after purchasing the needed extras for the lathe I began my current wood turning adventures.
The real turning point was Eric giving me a rough turned Madrone burl bowl. That was so exciting to turn. Dave Schweitzer noticed my excitement and asked me to come and see him. He had no idea what he was in for. After a long day at Dave’s he finally got rid of me after six in the evening. This began a marathon of turning wet wood and learning and practicing the techniques that had been shown. Two hundred rough turned bowls later there were signs of hope in my finished bowls.
Back to Dave’s and now hollow forms started popping up at home. A day with Roy Lane helped that experience as well. So much to learn and so little time, with lots of practice happiness ensued. Urns, baby rattles and vases appeared, some with dyed and some natural finishes.
The many demonstrators at our club and others continued to teach techniques that were new to me. With practice these new methods became easier to use and enabled me to produce better results.
Dale Larson lives in Gresham, Oregon and has been turning wood for 43 years. He specializes in turning bowls from local hardwoods, including Pacific Madrone and Big Leaf Maple. His work is both functional and beautiful and much admired by collectors and wood workers alike. His bowls can be found in private collections all over the world.
Dale has taught woodturning classes at John C. Campbell Folk School and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. He has been a demonstrator at five AAW Symposiums, eight regional symposia, and numerous local chapters, as well as international events in England and Israel. He has written articles about wood and woodturning in American Woodturner, World of Wood, Woodworker West, Woodturning Design, and L’echo des Copeaux (AFTAB France).
He currently serves on the board of the Larch Mountain Country Artisans and the Board of Advisors of the AAW. In 2019, Dale was named an AAW Honorary Lifetime Member. He served on the Board of Directors of the AAW from 2009 through 2014 as Symposium chair and three years as President. He is a past president of the Northwest Chapter of the International Wood Collectors Society and a founding member and twice past president of the Cascade Woodturners in Portland, Oregon.
