Been extremely busy since weather has turn warm.

I just realized it been a while since I made my last post. When the weather turn nice I started working outdoors putting in fruit trees, flowers and planting grass where I always had mud when it rain. I was just bursting out all over with work plans in the yard and just havn't had time for anything else.

I also took my first train ride on the L&C railroad and enjoyed that a lot.

I still have a lot to do in the yard and that is eating in to my computer time which I really need to spend less time on anyway. I hope everyone is enjoying themselve now that it is turn warm

My woodturning art reception

Last thursday I had my reception for my art work at the springs house in lancaster SC. I was very apprenhsive about the turnout for it. The turnout was great and so I have to say the reception was a huge suscess for me. I was very pleased how everyone responded about my woodturnings.

Now that it is over I need a rest. Now instead of trying to create enough work to put in my art show I can concentrate more on the artistist work to my woodturnings and not on how much I make. Not that I neglected the artist work but I don't like working under pressure meeting a deadline.

My work will still be on display for all of April at the Springs art council.

Today is a very special day for me. It is my birthday but also it is the day of the start of my woodturning show in Lancaster SC. The reception starts at 5:30 Pm today. I will have on display my work at the Springs house in Lancaster for all of this month.

I have done some shows and demostration before so this is not exactly new to me so what is so special about this show.

Well for one I have never done a show in my home town of Lancaster. This is not just showing my work before strangers but it showing it to my friends and family most of which have never seen my art work. I wonder how they will react to my being a artist or maybe attempting to be a artist is a better word. Will they think I am good or not? Of course I know I am good but the question is what will they think?

The Idea of doing a show in my hometown of Lancaster started three and half years ago. when if first came up it was just after I injured my leg bad. I though then I would never be able to turn again so doing a show as for as I was concern could never happen. I was cripple and the pain my leg was so bad that my life center around my leg.

Well mircalously I have been able to start turning again and for the past six month or so I have been busy making new work to put in the show. I just hope it they will be well received and my reputation as a turner will be enhanced in my hometown. Lancaster will become my home again and will be center for doing my art work instead of Charleston.

I am also hoping that this show will give me a big boast in reestablishing myself as a premier art turner that I had lost due to my injury and inabilty to turn wood for so long.

Although my blogger is intended to show mostly my photography and woodturnng I like to occassionally add a little about my bicycling since it is my favorite sport.

For the past few days I have been to Charleston and had the chance to make my first bicycle ride for 2009 and I hope it just the start of many more bike rides. I have a home on James Island near the ocean and that is usually my starting point for a bicycle tour. I have ridden on James Island and Folly Beach hundreds of time but it been a while since I last done that. This weekend it was like riding it for the first time. The weather was beautiful but just teasy bit cool especially riding on the beach.

In all I rode 42 miles in three days which I used to ride the same distance in about 2 1/2 hours. Well I am not as good as I was once plus I am terribly out of shape. Riding my bike did make me feel a lot better more like I used to feel.

I also rode on the West Ashley Greenway for the first time in about two or three years. It is a old railroad bed turn into a walking and bike path. It will be part of the East Coast Greenway bicycle path that will run from Maine to Florida. I had hope to ride it all the way one day but that is not likely to happen now. I should be thankful that I can ride a bicycle at all now because of my injury to my leg back in 2005. This put a end to m active life style but I am trying to recover some of it back.

Today I going to attempt to ride my bicycle downtown Lancaster on part of what was my paper route back when I was a teenager. This will be the first time since I rode a bike downtown since around 1958 or 59. I know I can't ride the entire route as I can't even remember where all my route went.

I hope to publish more stories about my future in cycling.

Three woodturning that I have just finished

Cherry Fluted Bowl
Competed March 2009
Aproximately 10 inches diameter by 4 inches high.



































These are two pieces that I just finish. They are made out of spalted Elm and Walnut Trim.





I have done several pieces like this in the past few years. One is very similar to one that I saw on the web or it is similar to mind. I Don't know which. However not sure I will sell either piece but just used them for display and perhaps take orders for pieces like them with some minor changes.

Well it getting closer to my art show in April. It is to run for the entire month of April. The reception will be on April 2, 2009 which happens to be on my birthday. Maybe that is a good sign.

I do not know the time the reception starts. Hope to find out that soon and then I will post it.

The show will be at the Springs Art Council building at 201 W. Gay Street in Lancaster SC 29720. Their web page address is as follows.

http://www.lccarts.org/contact.htm

Everyone reading my blog is invited to attend. Hope their will be a good turn out to see my work.

A visit from some new friends

Last week was one of the best I have had while staying alone in Lancaster. I went out twice to eat out with some very dear high school classmates. To add to this yesterday I got a surprise visit from some wood Carvers out of Charlotte, Spartanburg and a little town called Silver Street near Newberry SC. I have never met any of them before not even online with the exception of one person who happens to be a good friend of mine.

They had heard about me from my friend that lives In Silver Street and had seen pictures my works on my blogs. So they came to my home to show me some woodcarving tricks that I had mention in my blogging that I wanted to learn to do. I am very interested in doing more woodcarving to my woodturnings. The really big difference between wood carving and woodturning is that the wood is revolving it is being carved out and wood carving the wood is stationary and uses different tools to cut the wood with.

I ended up doing some woodturning demonstration for them and we got to do a little woodcarving. These were a great group of guys and we intend on doing this again in March but this time it will be a planned event and I will be better prepared.

I forgot to take any pictures so I don't have any to post.

It snowed today where I live. I was going to start back woodturning today but I took a snow day off. Maybe tomorrow I will get back to turning.

These are pictures of my home and studio where I do my woodturnng. It great to live out in the country.

Photography a subject I enjoy yaking about

Photography is a subject that is of great interest to me, I love photography. I just read somewhere on the internet where someone cited that a well know celebrity was aloof. I am not going to say who that was because it really doesn’t matter. It did remind me of the time I spent in the summer of 1975 at the Maine Photographic workshop while I was taking some photography courses there.

The Maine Photographic workshops always have some of the best photographer’s instructors and that is why I went there. While there talking some courses in photography I was invited to eat lunch with one of the instructors along with a couple more students. This particular instructor was not one of my instructors and I never heard of him. We had lunch over several days together and I really enjoyed those times. Later I was invited to see his photographic works and his photography blew me to pieces. His photographs were exceptional and I thought to myself this guy should be famous for his works deserves it. His name was Arnold Newman and he indeed was famous as a photographer, I just didn’t know it.

One of the other students that I had become friends told me Arnold had commented that I seemed to be aloof. I wondered if that was supposed to be a compliment or what but did not think anymore of it until recently. That is were this story comes in. I look up in the dictionary what the meaning “Aloof” meant. I not so sure now that Arnold was paying me compliment. The definition of aloof is as follows: “chilly, distant, remote, reserved, standoffish, unapproachable, uncommunicative and disinterested. I have never though of myself being that way. I must admit that until I get to know a person better I am often times quiet until I feel comfortable with him or her. I don’t remember if I was that way back then but I can’t believe I was but for him to say that I must have been.

I started to wonder more about him and did some research on the internet about him last week. He is without question a very famous and well known photographer a lot more than I knew back in 1975. He died in June of 2006 at the age of 88. He was well known for his portraits of famous people. He was quoted as saying that he did not like photographing celebrities which is sort of ironic as he was sort of a celebrity himself.

In all the years since 1975 I never heard a lot about him and until now I just didn’t know of his fame as a photographer. His photographic works however did inspire me to learn how to be good at photography. I later open my own studio up for a time. Life however led me to pursue other interest which led me to moving to the coast and to live my dream of sailing my sailboat cruising on the east coast. I did a lot sailing doing things that I thought was to daring for me to ever do.

I am glad in some ways that I did not know who Arnold Newman was when I was in Maine back in 1975. I got to know him as just another human being who gets into his pants the same way I do who happened to be very good at photography.

I went on to study photography from other well known photographers. Some of them were Rock Gunn, Bill Stockwell who were exceptional famous wedding photographers, Peter Gowland , a famous glamour photographer to name a few. Rock Gunn and Bill Stockwell has since past away. I took courses from other famous photographers but I having a senior moment as I type this and can’t remember there names.

I never made it into the big time of photography but I did succeed in accomplishing a lot of what I love doing in photography and had my own studio until the call of sailing took me away from it.

Storms Clouds over the Horizon

Well this is my first post for 2009 and I hope as I am sure most of us do that this year will be the turn around we all are wishing and praying for.

Last night while I took my two TT's (Tibeten Terriers) for awalk I saw the most beautiful sunset that I seen in a long time. These clouds was marching by much like soldiers marching in a parade.

I was mesmerized by watching them when I realize that I should take some picture of them. By the time I got my camera and got setup I had miss the best of the lighting as the sun had set to low in the sky. I was only able to get a couple of shots before the colors in the clouds was lost. Anyway this picture gave me a good reason to make my fist post.

I have not done any woodturning now for about three weeks because of Christmas and New Year break that I took. I think today I will start back to work and start making more turning for my April woodturning art show in Lancaster.

There will be times when you will be in the field without a camera. And, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. Don't be bitter because you can't record it. Sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is! ~DeGriff

Swapping Art and work in progress

Picture at left is a vase that I am working on. It not finished but I thought I would go ahead a post it. In this picture I have it mounted in wood chuck jaws on my lathe putting a finish on it.

I am making this for a artist friend I met a few years ago on another blogging site I have and we became friends. She is also a avid bicyclist which makes her really special. Cyclist are special people you know and when they are a talented artist as well you can't beat that excluding me. I am not special and never have been.

A few weeks ago she send me a message about getting one of my woodturnings. I made a deal with her that if she painted a special picture I had in my mine I would make a vase for her in exchange for making her vase. She wants to use it to put her brushes in that she paints with.

This picture below is taken just after I took it off lathe and before I started to putting a finish on it. I will post the completed vase as soon as it is done.

The story about the picture she is painting for me is on myspace blog if you like to read it. The address is

http://www.myspace.com/sandlapperadventures

I will also post the picture she paints for me and give her full credit for doing it. You may want one of her paintings, she is good.

Added 1/12/2010
This deal never went through. I completed my part of the arrangement but the artist that was gong to paint my picture did not do her part. I received a number of emails on different occasions from her stating she was going to start on my painting soon but soon never happen. I wish she justwould have told me she wasn't going to do it. I could have sold this vase several times but kept it out of my inventory just for her but that is no more.









Another vase in the making. I have it mounted on the lathe using a steady rest so I can remove the wood from inside of the vase.

I will be trying to use new techniques in making this vase. I hope I can do them right and not screw the vase up. Will take me time doing them. Be next year before i finish this vase. That is right around the corner you know. Got to slow down now for Christmas, family is coming and I am not allowed to do any turning after they

arrived.



This is the finish vase from above. I didn't do all the details to it that I intended. I felt that to do this may ruin it so I changed the design slightly in a direction that I was more comfortable with.

Althought I started this piece last December it represents my first finish piece for 2009. Yepee.

I also got a small studio setup to photograph my work. This is also the first time I used it to take pictures of my work. I still have to modify it some to get the results I am after.

Walnut vase with carving on it.

Well it been 10 days since I finish a woodturning. I am really slow now. this is a walnut vase that is 10 inches high by 3 1/4 dia. At first I planned on leaving it plain but after I finish it I knew it needed something else to make it stand out. So I added some carving and some dimples to it.

It getting close to my daugher comming to visit us this Christmas so I want be doing a lot of woodturning the rest of the year. I have one more vase that I am working on and plan on trying to at least make one other vase with a top cover to it. I almost have enough turning made for my show in April at the Springs House in Lancaster.

Now I can start taking more time to do a little more artsy turning after the new year begins.

Fluted Bradford Pear Bowl

I finally finish another piece. I am perfecting my ablities to do fluted and ornamental work on my woodturnings. Part of this is developing the tools that I have to have in order to do this kind of work. So the fluted work is pretty simple right now until I perfect the tools I need. This is one thing that can't be bought ready to use. I have to modify the tools I used for this work.

This is a fluted bowl made from Bradford Pear. Although the fluted work is not terribly complicated I am learning how to do more complicated work using this technique through trial and error. Unfortunely it does involve a lot of trials and lots of errors. This Bowl did turn out kinded nice I think.

So does wood really talk to you??

I have heard the phrase "The wood Talks to Me" used by woodturners. The idea is that the wood tell the turner how to bring out the best or beauty of the wood he turning.

I have attended woodturning demostration where the demostrator said flat out that no one should turn a piece when think are letting the wood talk tell them what to do. The demonstrator says a good woodturner knows before hand what shape he intends on turning and often designs the piece before trying to turn it.

I agree with this, a turner should have a good idea of what shapes he intends to turn. The wood is not going tell you anything or will it. I have used the phrase some in teaching woodturning. So just what does it mean to me? I use the phrase meaning that I listen to the sounds my cutting tool makes, I pay attention to how the tool is feeling in my hands as I turn the wood. To me that is the wood talking with me. It lets me know if I am having a problem that could lead to disaster like breaking my turning or throwing it out of the chuck so I have to dodge it if I fast enough. It also tells me if I need to sharpen my tool. Hey I used this thechnique a lot as a tool and die maker and I was a very good tool and die maker if I do say myself.

I watch some inexperience turners showing how they turn wood and I would cringe at the sounds there were making as they turn the piece. In some cases I actually predicted the wood was going to fly of the lathe in pieces by just listening to the sound of the wood being cut.

This piece in the picture above may have actually talked with me in the sense it told me how to turn it. Then again maybe it didn't tell me a darn thing. I actually had a design that I was going to make. As I was turning the wood it became clear to me that my design was not going to work with this wood. It also became clear that I needed to turn it different from what I intented. Well I had intended on Fluting the sides similar but not the same as in the post I made earlier about making a fluted bowl. Now I not sure if the wood told me to turn it the way I did but maybe it did. I decided not to do any fluting but just turn a plain simple ordinary Bowl.

I did turn it thinner than usual as I am not a fan of real thin walls. It takes skill to turn thin but I not sure it always looks that good being exceptionally thin except in cases where you want a translucent wall. This one is turn with 1/8 inch walls. It is about10inches Dia. by 4 inches high .

Well you be the judge.

A sunflower

Every now and then I get excited about something that I turn. I also get impatient and photograph it before it is completed. This is one of them I still have more work to do to it before it is finish. Anway it sort of reminds me of a sunflower but I guess you need to use your imagination. The lacquer has not even dried yet in these photograph and once it is dry I still have to polish it.

I was actually working on another bowl that is bigger and could not photograph it yet. It is also in the state of drying from putting the finish on it. Well I thought I would turn something else while it was drying and did not want to start a big project. I had another piece of cherry wood that is left over after coring out another bowl. So I thought I would make something quick out of it while the other piece was drying. I wasn't so quick in making it as I did more to it than I intended to do. I glad I did change my mind and made this as I like it. Hope you like it also. the pictures are lousy so I hope you will over look them. I will photograph them again once I complete it as well as he other piece I am working on.