Chihuly Series

This group of turning of part of my Chihuly Series. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Dale Chihuly, he is an American glass artist. He often uses the natural force of gravity to help determine the final shape of his molten glass art work. In this series I have taken inspiration for Chihuly’s work to create a similar effect in my turnings. Using mulberry burl wood that was still very wet, I turned these pieces to finish and then lets the natural forces associated with drying to warp and crack the turnings to determine their final shape. Even though you can't see it in the picture each piece has some wonderful texturing and movement in the wood do to warping. Sizes are: 8"W x 8 1/4"H; 5 1/2"W x 6 1/2"H; 4 1/2"W x 3 1/4"H.
Attachment 368029

Nice pieces! I'm not familiar with Mr. Chihuly but I like the clever way you've adapted his approach to a wood. Wish I could see the texturing and warping.
Fred

They are beautiful. Any tips on finishing a wet blank? Do you still have to sand after drying?

Beautiful pieces Steve, lot of artistic work going on there!

Really nice work, Steve. I love that you kept the natural edge.

Steve, is all the movement due to the wood itself or do you add to the distortion and movement with force, clamps, weights, etc?

I like the natural movement of wood, it doesn't happen in every piece so I've been thinking of encouraging it a bit.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Frederick--I'll try and get some close ups of some of the pieces so you can get a better view of what it looks like.

Brandon--I do all of my sanding prior to the drying process. If you try to sand after the wood is dry, you sand away some of the fine texturing that forms during the drying process

Doug--all of my distortion and texturing is the result of the natural drying process. I do not use any clamps, weights, etc. in the drying process. Some woods do move more than others, but I have found that the wetter the wood is when you dry it the more movement and texturing you will get.