Loading ...This last weekend I attended the Florida Woodturning Symposium in Lake Yale, FL. To say that I had a great weekend is an understatement! It was such a pleasure to be able to immerse myself in wood turning for three days.
My trip started out early Friday morning. I had to leave the house before 6am to get to the venue as I was scheduled to do a workshop with Dixie Biggs at 8:30am on Friday. The workshop was great. Dixie, is obviously a great teacher as well as an amazing artist. I have just started to get into carving, my rotary carver is barely broken in yet, and was concerned that I might be “that guy” holding the rest of the class back. Fortunately most of the class was in the same situation, although I think Dixie is more than capable of handling a class with a variety of experience levels. There were only seven of us in the class, so we were really able to get some one on one time with Dixie.
I was also pleased that I was able to get some valuable information about what burrs to buy. I had been doing some research and with the huge assortment available I was getting pretty confused. I was starting to feel that if you ever think you have run out of tools to throw your money at, then you should get into power carving. Dixie gave us a list of a dozen or so burrs to bring to the class, and it seems that this will be a good selection to get started with.
After the workshop, the demonstration rotations started. Well, truth be told, we had lunch after the workshop and then the rotations started. It quickly became obvious that wood turners like to eat and they like to eat often!!
The list of demonstrators that I managed to see over the weekend were as follows:
- Rudolp Lopez
- Michael Mocho
- Dale Nish
- Nick Cook
- Alan Leland
- Larry Hasiak
Al Hockenbery was also demonstrating, but I did not see him as he recently did a full day demonstration and a full day workshop for our wood turning club.
Watching a total of eight demonstrations over a 48 hour period can be a bit of information overload! I plan on posting about some of the demonstrations over the next couple of weeks, as I process the information. I learnt a lot and there were a number of things that I saw which left me thinking, “I have to try that!”
In between the demonstrations and all the meals, I spent plenty of time in the main auditorium area where the vendors and the instant gallery were set up. While the vendors provided plenty of irresistible temptation, the instant gallery was a constant source of inspiration and motivation! I’m always amazed at the talent and creativity I see from other turners.
I took plenty of pictures of the pieces that I really liked and have created an album for those not lucky enough to be there. You can view it at this link. I hope you enjoy the images!
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