OVER THE YEARS: THE SHOP AND MY STUDENTS
A SHORT HISTORY OF MY WORKSHOP
From 1970 to 1975 I taught industrial arts to 4th through 8th grade boys and girls. During that time I learned what a pleasure turning was and how much others enjoyed learning it. In 1975 I went to England to take Peter Child's course and to see how he did it. His approach was largely one of demonstration, with the notion that you would practice what you could remember once you got home. I did not like the approach because of its lack of practice while there, but I did like the idea of offering instruction in my home workshop.
So in 1976 I started offering woodturning instruction in Westminster West, near Brattleboro, VT. We had started building the house earlier that year and were making relatively great progress. However, when the first students arrived in October, we had a shop, kitchen, family room, and I had just put in the toilet. My first two students, two doctors, helped me prop up drywall around the toilet, and we flushed the toilet with a hose hooked up to a pump in the basement. My family climbed a ladder to our bedrooms on the second floor. So we could turn and serve meals. Soon the students' guest rooms were done and we started taking students into the house as well as providing meals.
Then we finished our bedrooms on the second floor and one of my student seeing our daughters climbing the ladder, said, "I condemn the house." As it happened he was a master stairbuilder and with his help I designed an impressive stair of mahogany and white oak. In the meantime classes continued in the basement workshop.
We have pictures of the house a year later, taken during an annual meeting of the International Wood Collectors Society. The picture shows the white marks indicating the drywall in the living room was taped and ready for painting. Soon after the picture was taken, the living room was finished and the house was "done" except for a few details that would not be finished for many years. And still the workshops continued. I take much pleasure in seeing many of my former students as members of the American Association of Woodturners which you can link with here. www.woodturner.org/
Time passed, I was selling Myford lathes which I use in the workshops, and then added tools and other supplies, such as Permacel double-faced tape. Students continued to come to Vermont. In slow seasons or when requested, I went to them.
Around 1997 I took an extended "sabbatical," sailing south to the Bahamas and then out to Corpus Christi, TX, and finally back to a marina in Ft. Myers, FL. While living on the boat I commuted daily to an "old Florida" property near Punta Gorda, where I built the turning workshop and house in which I now live. Thus I am reminded of my Vermont experience, except for the additions of hurricanes and warmer weather. The shop and house survived Hurricane Charley nicely, but most of the pine trees were snapped off half way up. For some odd reason, none hit the house.
Each summer I go north to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
MY STUDENTS, A VERY INTERESTING AND SPECIAL GROUP
I’ve had wonderful students since I started offering workshops in 1976. These are some of their stories, illustrative of the point that there is much to be gained from supervised instruction rather than a hit-or-miss approach.
There was an art teacher from a New Jersey college. In later years we met occasionally at turning conferences and at one he told me that as he had approached my home for the course he had come close to calling up to say he could not make it. The idea of being under the watchful eye of someone else was hard to imagine. Yet he realized he did this all the time to his students. He said studying with me gave him a new perspective on teaching his own students.
For many this feeling has to do with the fear of failure. I know the feeling, having given up studying electrical engineering long ago. But your situation is different. You enjoy turning and want to improve your skills, or you enjoy watching others turn and would like to try to do what they are doing. Don't even think of failure! Since 1976 I can think of only 3 who did "fail," primarily due to temperament. (They were too impatient with themselves.
The course might help you avoid the following situation: A student told me he had bought a lathe. He mounted wood between centers, turned it on, tried a few cuts and and turned it off. Ten years later his wife asked him what he was going to do with that piece of wood in that machine in the basement. He called me, came for the course, and after turning two days and making several decent items, announced, "It isn't as much fun as I thought it would be." If one realized that before investing in a lathe and a bunch of tools, you'd be ahead. If, on the other hand, you found you enjoyed it, then you'd have a good start and some ideas that would help you buy the lathe and tools you need.
One student said that he was glad he had come to me first because of the approach I take which prepares you for future turning experiences. My approach combines hands-on activities with the theory that explains why you do things in a particular way. My approach provides you with practice, some immediate successes, and a theoretical reference for all your future turning experiences. To see one example of course material, go to the page entitled Zimmerman's Basics of Turning
A few years ago, on the first evening, a student started out saying, "I'm scared to death of my lathe." He was the first to say this before starting, but I have always known this was a common feeling. I started him turning and he realized he was in control and there was little to fear, "except fear itself," which leads to apprehension, which may lead to loss of control. I keep you turning, and with success you build confidence.
A final personal note: I was once at a craft show in Northampton, MA. Three of the exhibitors were former students. It was wonderful to see what they had done with turning since studying with me. One was making amazingly large, turned-wood lamp shades, in addition to his series of turned vessels. Another was making wonderful, large diameter bowls, and a third’s furniture, some of which incorporated turnings, was beautifully crafted.
Please note: Whatever these former students have done is attributable to their own creative skill, desire and patience, rather than to me. The same is true of the art teacher who is well known for his giant turned tops. Whatever came from me was new techniques, theory, the idea that turning could be done better, and that you could make a living at it, in my case by teaching. Just this knowledge has kept many turners going.
I remember so many of my students, most of whom did woodturning for leisure, as a hobby. Every so often I'll hear from someone who was with me years ago. Sadly, others have died. But as I look through the Woodturners' Association membership, I am pleased at the number of current members that came to me first, long ago.
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