Charlie,
I reviewed Andi Wolfe's AAW 2007 Instant Gallery pictures on her blog. Just
blew me away. The creativity is awesome. Considering Arch's comments, I'd
say there's fantastic beauty, not just exercise in distinction or hyperbole.

I can recognize what I like after I've seen it. The challenge to me is to
envision it from scratch and then get it done in that way. Also, I think
your post about wasting 95% of the wood was right on as it just bothers me
no end to see so much on the floor.

I've just been working some with 3D Design and it amazes me how little
adjustment makes such a difference in how eye-pleasing the object is. Quite
an exercise with the advantage of instant results without catches and the
ability to put "wood" back on when you eliminated too much.

I tried duplicating in the program one of Cindy Drozda's finials. It took me
longer, I swear, than it did to watch her do it in a demo. My excuse is that
I've just started learning the program. Probably applies to my lathe work,
as well. I've some Dogwood that is very tight grained that I hope will work
for trying to simulate some of her fragile designs. Looks like a perfect use
for a skew:-)

Simply, like you, I look at these works and shake my head at how they can
come up with such neat ideas. They just seem so far ahead of any thinking I
can manage. While humbled, I still enjoy the exercise though.

TomNie

"charlieb" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, after an hour at the Dontist (no, that's not a misspelling
of "dEntist" - "dOntists" are the Formula One drivers of dentistry),
and in a Vicodin induced state, I spent several hours exploring the
Association of American Woodturners (AAW) site - specifically the
Galleries dating back to 1987. It was astounding how this area of
woodworking has evolved in just 20 years. From familiar plates
and bowls, it's gone in so many different directions, many of which
seem impossible, if not flat out crazy. And since turning seems
to be a pretty crazy thing to do to begin with - "take this sharp
piece of steel and poke it into that spinning chunk of wood", you
have to do something really insane to meet my "crazy" criteria.

If "thinking outside the box" means not being constrained by
"convention", there are turners thinking "out of this world"
Now I'm not talking about Star Trek's "Going where no one's
gone before" - but going to a "there" where you couldn't even
imagine a "there" there.

So my (rhetorical) question is:

In the turning world / solar system / galaxy / universe
how the hell can I "think outside the box"
when
there doesn't seem to be a "box"?

Check out where the links on this page take you
and poke around for a while - say two or three
HOURS. If you're looking for a Muse - I'm betting
she's hiding in there somewhere.

http://www.woodturner.org/gallery/

Fun this woodworking thing - and turning is
The Funnest (sp?).

charlie b