'american black walnut bowl with spalting'

i was given this piece of american black walnut because, as it happened, nobody else was prepared to take it on.

always a promising start.

in a previous life, someone had attempted to ‘fix’ the spalting with an enthusiastic application of ca glue. it had dripped across the surface, filled cracks and crevices, and was joined in places by random bits of sawdust. a sort of diy archaeology.

so the challenge was set:

“see what you can do with that.”

i had a shape in mind, but dealing with the wood’s hereditary problems proved rather more difficult than anticipated. the glue had become part of the story, the spalting had its own ideas, and the walnut itself is no pushover. it’s a hard wood to turn, demanding a mixture of patience, sharp tools and the occasional reconsideration of one’s life choices.

over several weeks, i slowly worked my way through it using skew, bowl and scraping tools, gradually revealing what was actually there beneath the accumulated history.

and that, perhaps, is what i like most about turning wood.

you rarely start with a blank canvas.

you start with something that already has a history.

american black walnut is a beautiful timber, known for its deep chocolate and purplish tones, fine grain and distinctive figuring. this particular piece had something extra: spalting, scars, glue, sawdust and all the evidence of previous attempts to make sense of it.

rather than trying to erase all of that, i wanted to work with it.

the bowl was sanded to 600 grit, finished with true grit and given a coat of northern shine wax. it is food-safe.

height: 6.5 cm diameter: 29 cm

it is, to date, the largest bowl i’ve turned.

and perhaps more importantly, it has made me want to go considerably bigger.

i love this piece.

i love its history, its awkwardness, its stubbornness and the challenge it presented.

most of all, i love the fact that the piece nobody else wanted eventually became something i really didn’t want to let go of.