Andi Wolfe's Blog: 2010 AAW Symposium - 6/18/2010

Friday is always an exciting day at the AAW symposium. Primarily that is because it's hard to make up your mind as to what to see and do. Since I was concentrating on taking photos I spent a bit of time all over the symposium.

My first stop after checking the teapot, spoon and Maple Medley exhibits was the youth room. Bonnie Klein was first on the schedule.

It doesn't take long for the kids to really get into turning. The concentration quotient is very high.

Samuel Avelino coaching.

Bonnie Klein, giving some assistance in guiding the gouge.

Dick Sing had one of the first rotations - this one was on basic pen turning.

John Whelan (in orange) soaked it all up. He went to both of Dick's demonstrations Friday morning.

I went to the first PoP rotation. Jacques Vesery, Art Liestman and Tania Radda did a panel discussion on the teapot as a canvas. They showed all the teapots in the exhibit plus a few extra. Then they invited artists participating in the teapot exhbit who were in the audience to comment on the work in the gallery. That was very interesting, particularly because for many of the artists, this was their first excursion into the art of teapots. Some were very intimidated while others went full tilt into something very different from their previous experience. It was neat to hear about some of the inspiration that fed into the designs.

This is Michael Hosaluk's "Self Portrait," which is now in my personal collection.

Joey Richardson demonstrated her coloring and piercing techniques.

It's interesting to me that demonstrations on surface enhancement are always well attended. Given how vocal some of the "purists" are on the AAW forum as well as Woodcentral, one would think there is no interest in moving beyond brown and round. My demos are always well attended and well received, so I sure don't buy this story line. There are a lot of turners who want to explore texture, color, pyrography, piercing, etc.

Mark St. Leger did demos on making some interesting boxes. I'd recommend his demos to anyone who wanted to improve tool usage.

David Marks did demos on his metal patina effects.

After popping in and out of several demos, I went to the instant gallery to check out the amazing diversity of work on display.

Dave Long brought in two turnings from his collection. These are collaborative pieces by Euclid Moore and Marilyn Endress. Euclid does the turning and Marilyn adds the beadwork.

One really needs to take a close look at the beadwork. This is a traditional style of beading endemic to northern Chihuhua, Mexico. The antique glass beads are embedded in a wax matrix.