I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings