You never know where your work will end up

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something inside me that sees potential in almost any piece of wood I lay my eyes on. Most often an idea develops, followed by the drive to convert it into an object. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but there is learning in the making.

From that learning my making grows, and I make mistakes along the way, all part of reflection about what is a successful product and what isn’t… introspection is a difficult tool to face up to because it challenges you to critique yourself, not others…

I have been fortunate to have found buyers whose aesthetic tastes matched those of the pieces I have made. I was also lucky enough to ride the crest of the ‘Wood Art’ movement in the US in the late ‘90s’ and early noughties where collectors were paying high prices for work that was challenging the boundaries of what could be made from wood, especially work originating from the lathe.

That golden period led to collectors purchasing some of my pieces that eventually ended up in museum collections such as the Los Angeles Museum of Art among other prestigious museums. Hence several of my pieces were published in a number of books that celebrated the most innovative work being created at that point. It was a good time.

Now let’s bring this back to our own ‘backyard’.

When people see my work, they often ask what do you use it for? My response is, you buy it, you decide. But once it is sold, I don’t really know what happens to it and sometimes I get quite a surprise when I stumble on it some years down the track.

Watching the final stages in an episode of ‘Grand Designs Australia’, the host was sitting with the owners of the newly completed home, when I noticed a bowl behind them. I looked at my wife and said, “I’m sure that’s one of my bowls”. Rewinding the scene and pausing it provided the opportunity to confirm that, yes, it is one of mine! Wow!!

But then, during an internet search my name came up on E-bay showing one of my Red Gum boxes for sale in London, where the asking price was a fraction of what I sold it for originally. As this has been one of my production items, pricing has been based on material cost and time taken to make the piece, but the requested price was less than the wood is worth.

And then there was an e-mail from a lady who contacted me to let me know how much she liked my work and that she was able to by two of my painted Red Gum bowls for three dollars at Vinnies (a charity shop).

However: on a completely different note, a while ago I was approached by a lady who saw work she liked on my website. Her brother had recently passed away, and she and her mother wanted an urn in which to house his ashes. His passing was still quite ‘raw’, so she needed some time but wanted to start the process.

The lady contacted me again a couple of months later confirming that a decision had been made, providing some drawings of a proposed design. The urn was scaled down to contain a portion of the ashes, while the remainder would be scattered. Discussions led to a decision of a sphere made of Huon Pine, about 120mm in diameter so it could be held in the palms of one’s hands.

The twist in this story came when she arrived to collect the sphere and told me that her mother’s wish was that when she passes, she wants to be buried holding the urn in her hands, nurturing her son’s ashes…