2007 AAW Symposium - Part 3

Saturday, June 30, 2007.

Of all the demonstrators at the symposium I most wanted to sit through one of Alain Mailland's rotations. His work is so interesting and he's such a creative genius that one can't help but learn a lot by watching him work.

I caught several glimpses of his rotations, but sat through the one where he showed images of his work and shop. That was fantastic! I especially enjoyed watching the progression of his work from one design to another.





There were some late entries to the instant gallery and some work I had missed the previous day, so here are some more pictures from the gallery. This sculptural piece is by Nick Agar.















Dennis' Laidler's suspended vessel. I might have posted a pic of this already. . .











Lidded segmented vessels by Mark Kauder.











More of Alain Mailland's sculptures.











no comment. . .

















Another look at the trade show.










A quick hello to Jimmy.











Back to the instant gallery.


Close-up of one of Sharon Doughtie's bowls. I like how she works the Norfolk Island pine branching pattern into her Celtic weave designs.








This one moves beyond the basic bowl form. I like the motion in this piece.









Ken Rodgers made these pierced mask forms.












A set of vessels by Bob Dool (ok, so I do have some brown and round pics to show on my blog).










This is round, but not brown. Steve Worcester made a vessel from shredded credit cards in epoxy. That's good recycling for you.













The Youth Turning program was in full swing on Saturday. Bonnie Klein took the morning sessions and Nick Cook the afternoon. The program is a huge success. Congratulations to Bonnie and Nick, and all the volunteers who make this work.



Saturday night is when the AAW banquet and auction take place. Binh Pho gave an abbreviated tribute to Frank Sudol as the banquet was in full swing. It was really hard to hear what was happening over the sound of cutlery on plates and the ongoing conversations amongst 1500 attendees.

It was a nice gesture by Binh, though.



The AAW auction is an important component of the Saturday night banquet. With a room of 1500 - 2400 people, running an auction efficiently is a big challenge. For the past several years John Hill has been our auctioneer. This year John worked the first half and the second half was turned over to a professional company of auctioneers.

There were mixed reviews of this. Some attendees thought it was pretty efficient while others complained that the company didn't know enough about the work being auctioned.

My opinion is that John really knows how to auction the work from woodturners, but that the spotters in the pro company were probably better at keeping the auction moving along than what has happened in the past with volunteer spotters. It will be interesting to see what happens next year.


In past years the announcing of each piece has been done by Phil Brennion (past president and double term board member). Phil wasn't able to attend this year's symposium so announcing duty was passed onto Jacques Vesery, who promptly recruited helpers (Art Liestman, Christian Burchard, and yours truly).








Malcolm Tibbetts also was helping with the auction as a current AAW board member.

"You guys are having way too much fun!"















Christian says, "really?"










Ok, so we'll get serious. . .












"Not a chance," said Jacques.

We took turns doing the announcing, which worked out pretty well. It was sometimes a challenge to figure out how to pronounce names of turners who we didn't personally know.











These contributions are from familiar faces - Steve Sinner on the left and Don Derry's contribution on the right.









I think this Koa vessel was from David Ellsworth, but I might be misremembering.











A donation by Bill Tilson.

















Art Liestman's donation.












John Hill is hard at work . . .
















while some of us are goofing off.










Bill Luce's contribution to the auction.












I couldn't resist photographing this angle of Gerritt Van Ness' donation.

















This was the donation that brougt in $30,000 - a collaboration between the late Frank Sudol and Binh Pho.














The collaboration between Bonnie Klein and Jacques Vesery brought in a respectable $20,000.


















"Yes, I'm allowed to touch it. I made it!"















This one needed to be shown properly. I can't remember the maker, but the title was "George Bush's gift to the American people."

Those of us backstage had a hard time not laughing about Jacques' rendition of Vanna White, especially given the visual innuendo. Enough said.









I think this was Alain Mailland's piece, but I can't remember the details more than a month out from the symposium.

Anyway, the auction was a huge success with more than $100,000 raised for the educational opportunity grant program.