Howdie everyone,

Went to the Midwest Salute to the Master’s art show this weekend.  It was held in Fairview Heights, IL.  I mainly go to look at “wood stuff”.  This year that meant several wood turners, one furniture maker, one box maker, one intarsia artist, and one whittler.  I got some business cards off of some of those folks

I admire what they do:  making a living out of working wood.  Consequently, here is a couple of web links for you to check out:

www.cloudnet.com/~jkberg

www.stevenmartinboxes.com

Getting back to the artshow though, I’ve never really considered intarsia, art.  There is something about the way it looks, that makes it look too “crafty” or cheap.  I can understand there is a lot of work cutting out all of these intricate intwined pieces of wood.  That takes a good scroll saw, a lot of patience and some skill.  So no matter how good a piece looks and makes you say “wow” I would’t want an intarsia piece hanging on my wall.  It has a dogs playing poker cheesiness about it.  Sorry, don’t mean to bust on all the intarsia folks out there.  I envision some heated replies coming my way.  So be it.

The one furniture maker that was there had the same table displayed from an art show back in May.  So I have to think of several reasons for this:

1.  It is overpriced

2.  It’s aesthetics don’t jive up with Midwestern demographics

3.  Fragile looking legs and looking too easy to tipover appearances don’t sell to people with kids.

4.  Exotic woods with eye catching grain patterns arranged in different outside of the box 3D configurations does not art, make.

5.  Maybe such imaginative creations of wood are strictly a way to catch people’s attention to lure them into thinking “If he can do that, he sure could do a great job of making new kitchen cabinets or a library.”  A woodworker’s way of pressing the flesh possibly.

And now on to my next group of WWers to allienate:  The Turners.  Yes, I am getting tired of more woodturners than any other kind of WWing “artist” at an artshow. I understand how spinning a chunk of wood can yield a seat of the pants free flowing metamorphosis of dead tree into something art like.  A turner is not limited or inhibited to building with sticks and panels, say like a furnituremaker or cabinet maker is.  But I get a little irked when I see at least 3 woodturners whose products could have been carbon copies of each other.  Maybe it’s the fault of the shows managers and planners to have 3 very similar artisits.  I sure would have appreciated seeing something different.

So anyway, please pardon the rant.  I still admire that thes guys have gone out on a limb to make a living at woodworking.

And no I don’t plan on jumping head first into the realm of the starving woodworking artist, myselft.  Well, at least not any time soon.  Maybe one day…

Sorry for the rant.

Chills

P.S.  I did have an interesting conversation with the box maker about all of the budding WWer’s that stop by and tell him that they have a bandsaw in the basement or garage and think they can make boxes like his, no sweat.