Black cherry burl, with earth greens, reds and gold leaf inlay, 9" diameter x 9.75" by Robert Chatelain

If you're not familiar with wooden art, a trip to Old City's Wood Turning Center (WTC) may initially sound like an objectionable rest stop on an unfortunate family road trip. Step into the center's bright and open gallery, however, and you'll find yourself surrounded by such an engrossing mélange of fascinating pieces, it's easy to forget that everything you see has been created from a single medium.

The current exhibition, Tree of Life: Wood Art, Turning Around the World is an excellent introduction to how conceptual, evocative and gorgeous wood can be. Multiple works by artists from several countries are on display, each demonstrating very distinct techniques and styles. Most pieces in Tree of Life, were turned on a lathe, as is typical of the woodworking craft. The turning process involves shaping and texturing material by spinning it on a horizontal axis that is kind of like a sideways pottery wheel, against a handheld turning chisel.

Many designs in the exhibition play with the primordial form of the vessel, probably one of the earliest intended products of the lathe-turning practice. Despite this apparent theme of a functional object, however, visitors will immediately recognize that the broad variety of ideas undertaken by the artists encompasses far more than a collection of cups, bowls or utilitarian objects. "That particular form (of the vessel) is a strong element in the medium," says exhibitions coordinator, David Foss. "But there are works that don't deal with it at all. Maria Nevelson, for example, does not presenting that idea in her pieces here, and didn't use a lathe to make them." Foss' comments are certainly consistent with the diversity of styles in Tree of Life. Nevelson, in fact, creates angular, harsh and tense conglomerations of silver-painted wood in her wall-hangings, while another contributing artist, George Peterson, uses a rough, simplistic aesthetic to fashion dark, basin-like bowls with a strong primitive character. Robert Chatelain, meanwhile, infuses rich patterns of burl with stunning gold-leaf and resin inlays in his "Hybrid Turnings" vessels, creating a look that is clearly natural but at the same time strikingly peculiar and otherworldly. The effect is like the cloudy, sparkling swirls of a bowling ball pattern that has been created by one of nature's astonishing creative processes.

Perhaps it is this collision of the natural and the mechanized that makes all of the works in the gallery so engaging. Examining something as ubiquitous and familiar as wood - that has been augmented into a material that looks like nothing we've seen before, creates the distinct urge to understand an object more thoroughly and more viscerally, even to the point of reaching out and touching it.

With some small boxes going for upwards of $1600, though, we encourage strong discretion.

Gallery at the Wood Turning Center. photo, WTC

The same contrast poses powerful conceptual questions: if these works are a pivot point between the natural world and the world of industry, might they be some sort of homage to the former, or an attempt to visualize something that couldn't possibly be created without human hands? Furthermore, what are the emotional implications involved in altering elements from their natural state into a form more pleasing to us? Are we taken further towards pride or towards regret?

It takes an experience with the pieces in the gallery to realize the importance of the Wood Turning Center's mission of education, preservation and promotion. "The Center was founded in 1986," says Foss. "It began primarily with the founder's private collection." Today the Center has a permanent collection of over 500 pieces and an archive of 15,000 slides, books, photos and artist histories housed in the same building as the gallery. WTC also sponsors programs like the International Turning Exchange, a residency event in collaboration with University of the Arts wherein selected wood turners, furniture makers and photographers work together in U Arts facilities and display their finished products in the gallery space during the summer. "It's a competitive event," says Foss. "So the collaborations that take place are often very influential."

Now is an excellent time to take a look at the important and remarkable work being created at the WTC. A lot of the pieces in Tree of Life are especially worth looking at during the gift-giving season. A few cool, inexpensive odds and ends are on sale as well, like jewelry and decorative items. If you miss the current exhibition though, make sure to take advantage of this under-publicized, under-rated local cache sometime soon. In the coming year, the Center will be expanding into the adjacent building, a move that will open up exciting opportunities to enjoy a captivating, yet too often unseen, art form.

Tree of Life: Wood Art, Turning Around the World, will run through January 8, 2005. The Wood Turning Center is located at 501 Vine Street. Additional information may be obtained by calling (215) 923-8000 and at the Center's website, www.woodturningcenter.org.

Copyright 2004 | Contact Us | Submission Guidelines | Staff | Obtain a Copy | Home