Too much excitement

I had just dropped Meghan off at her rehearsal when I got caught in a severe thunderstorm, complete with quarter to golfball size hail. I wasn't expecting that as I had just checked the storm warnings and there weren't any for our area. The wind picked up, the rain and hail were coming down in horizontal sheets, and I was hoping there were not going to be any tree limbs dropping on me as I rushed home to my garage. The tornado warning sirens went off just as I pulled into my garage and the hail and lightning strikes increased just at the moment. What fun! I'll have to sort out the various dents on my van after I get back from my field season. BTW - I'm heading to South Africa on Oct 9 and get back home on Nov 3. I'll be posting a series of travel reports while I'm away, so please stay tuned for a different kind of excitement over the next few weeks.

Here are some images from this evening's fun:





Those are respectable hail stones. Not quite as big as some I experienced in Underberg, South Africa in 2003, but nearly so.









Here's a view of the front yard looking down the street. The mist coming off the street is from the hail stones melting there.








Here's my front walk covered in hail and downed leaves. Our honey locust trees lining our street were nearly stripped bare of their beautiful fall foliage.








Here's another view. I hope we don't get too much rain tonight because our roof is covered in leaves and I expect the rain gutters will overflow and flood our basement. It's still lightning outside, so we can't go clear them as of yet.








Accumulation of hail stones at the back gate.











And in Emma's compost pile (aka as my wood shavings dump).









An example of the night's droppings. The good news is that no tree limbs came down and we weren't hit by a tornado. yippee!

SWAT symposium

This past weekend was the SWAT symposium in Temple, TX. This was a big symposium - almost 600 registered attendees plus a good number of spouses along for the weekend. I was one of the lead demonstrators along with Clay Foster, Dave Hout, Andre Martel and David Nittmann. I did five rotations, including my scientific outreach lecture, "All About Wood - Aesthetics to Zen." My other rotations were on surface enhancement techniques (texturing, carving, pyrography, scorching, and coloring). It was a lot of fun and I had a good time interacting with my audiences.

I also took a lot of photos and I was amazed to hear so many people ask me, "am I going to be on the blog?" I guess there are a lot of you out there who check my blog every once-in-awhile. Why don't you leave me some comments sometime so I know who you are?




I had some free time after I arrived to take some photos in the instant gallery. Here's my little display - just a variety of small bowls to show the different surface enhancement techniques I would be demonstrating over the weekend.









This is a collaboration by Marcia and John Tolly that was donated to the 2-for-1 raffle.












John Jordan vessels. I really like this design motif.














Here's a detail on the largest one in the display.

















A sculpture by Stephen Smith.
















"The agony of defeat" by Jerry Bennett. Boy, I wish I could have won this one in the raffle.


















One of Gary Sanders' beautiful suspended boxes.










An interesting sculptural piece by Chelsea Deakins.


















Steve Worcester had a couple of vessels that included slumped glass lids. These were very interesting to study.


















Boxes by Anthony Harris.










David Nittmann made this platter. I think the title is, "His dusty boots are his cadillac."















A vessel with inlay by Ken Terrell.

















An hour glass by David Swanson.















I liked this carved bowl by Jimmie Arledge.












Another piece by Ken Terrell. The texturing around the piercings was nice.















These nautilus/ammonoid forms by Raul Pena were my favorite pieces in the instant gallery. I want one!








Joel Crabbe made these jewelry sets.














Joel also made this box with a copper inlay.












This is a redwood vessel by Jerry Rush that has been sandblasted. The soft parts of the growth rings have disintegrated in this process.















A pair of goblets by Andre Martel.


















A carved vase by Tom Crosby.















I liked this red oak bowl by Larry Zarra enough that I bought it for my collection.














David Reeks (England) donated this platter with turned fruits to the raffle.












This is a sculptural piece by Chelsea Deakins - another donation to the raffle.













I also had some time to walk around the trade show.










Here are two of my favorite people - Vicki and John Jordan.











Bill Rubenstein at his Stubby Lathe booth.














Ruth Niles selling a variety of things. I bought another Carpe Lignum - Torne Lignum T-shirt.












During one of my free rotations, I went around to see some of the other demonstrators in action. Here's Andre Martel throwing shavings from a lampshade he's making.










Clay Foster demonstrating his hollow forms. I learned a few things from him in the few minutes I was able to watch.











Dave Hout doing a metal spinning demo.













David Nittman doing his thing on stage in the auditorium.











Bruce Hoover doing a sanding demo.













Bruce and I hid out in an art gallery so he could show me his prized possession - a Stelling banjo. Bruce loves to play bluegrass tunes on banjo and I enjoyed listening to them. I should have brought my fiddle!









Here's the back of the banjo - it's gorgeous!













I sure got a kick out of Clay Foster and his name badge. The demonstrators were supposed to have blue ribbons in our packets that were to be attached to the name badge. Several of us didn't have one in our packet, but Clay had some extras. Boy, he sure must be special. . .














Yep - a class of his own. Is this the equivalent of "Best in Show?"














The wives of many of the turners had their own space at the convention center, "the ladies room" as they called it. They did a lot of crafts during the weekend and had their own instant gallery.











Jewelry, paintings, and note cards were on display.











Here are some decorated gourds by Marty Farris.












Carvings by C. J. Solberg.














Quilts . . .
















And more quilts.










Miscellaneous doodads and ornaments.












The Saturday night banquet included the raffle for the donated turnings. The screen is showing the small "leaf saturation" bowl I donated.








The turners who donated items sat up in front, in alphabetical order, and presented the donated turnings to the lucky winners. I heard one of the committee members mention that they had raised over $6,000 from the raffle. It sure went much faster than an auction.






Steve Worcester and I were at the end of the alphabet and so we had to entertain ourselves during this long give-away process. Hey, Steve, you're on the blog!








This is Charlie Kay in his shop. He and his wife, Janey, brought me back to Austin on Sunday night so I could catch a flight early on Monday. Thanks, Charlie and Janey!










I liked the collection of bottle stoppers Charlie made. I bought one with a lone star for my bottle stopper collection.