Local Artist

Tom Haines - Wood Turning

Wood... Wood has had a special life-long impact on me. I grew up surrounded by furniture and other makings from my father's shop.

I was pounding nails by age five, built my first boat by age 16, built two racing sailboats by age 28 and built all of my living room furniture to put in my first purchased home.

The functionality of wood fascinated me. It is stronger than steel on a weight basis, works easily and smells good.

Nature is a better engineer than any of us. Those tiny wood fibers are manufactured as if by magic from water, CO2 and sunlight. They are assembled with magic nature glue and presented to us in over 100,000 species forms we call trees.

I cannot do what nature does, but I can take joy in enjoying the product. There are so many colors, textures and smells that it makes me want to run to my shop every chance I get. I cannot stop collecting those beautiful and ugly logs even beyond my capacity to turn them.

In celebration of what nature has offered me, I make the most of creating beautiful works of art, in my case through the turning of objects on my lathe. I try to enhance the beauty of this wonderful material by creating shapes that are complementary to the magical qualities of the wood.

I love to bury myself in wood shavings. Sometimes the wood is so wet that I should wear raingear while turning it. Once I got sick from the smell of Juniper. It was both wonderful and terrible. Imagine the joy of taking this ugly hunk of fire-wood and discovering an artistic beauty hiding inside. My most important tool is my knowledge of what to do and my joy in doing it.

Contact Information: Tom Haines 332 Tioga Ct. Palo Alto, CA 94306 Email: tom-haines@comcast.net Phone: 650-494-1036 Website: www.tomsturnings.com

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