Color--Is It Really The Future?

[Noah Barfield]

A couple of months ago, my local turning club hosted Don Derry. He gave a presentation on color and the realities of working as a professional turner. He also showed slides of the development of his work over the years and demonstrated how to use an air-brush. All in all, it was an impressive presentation--much of his work reminded me of Dale Chihuly's blown glass artwork.

During the presentation, however, he made a comment that confused me. He said that the future of wood-turning is no longer in selecting beautifully figured wood and turning/finishing it in such a way that it accents this figure. Instead, the future lies in using color.

I didn't think to ask then, but was hoping to get your feedback on these questions:

1) Do you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with Don Derry's statement?

2) As I mentioned, Derry's work reminds me of blown glass work. Is there an issue with using one medium to look like another? In other words--if a blown-glass look is what an artist is after, why not work in glass rather than wood?

I don't mean for these questions to offend anyone (I'm blown away every time I look on this forum at photos of members' art), but I am hoping to get a little perspective.

Noah

[Robert McGowen]

I would disagree with Mr. Derry, but this is obviously just my opinion. Part of this disagreement would be that Mr. Derry appears to be promoting what he does best, while making a blanket statement with no possible way of backing it up. Just as with me, it is apparently just his opinion.

[Dennis Ford]

I believe there is no such thing as THE future of woodturning. Most of us woodturners are not making a living at it but turning because we enjoy it. For that reason our own future of woodturning is what we make of it. The future of my woodturning will likely include some color but will definetly include selecting wood for figure and trying to make the most of that figure.

[John Keeton]

All one need do is attend a major symposium and see the wide diversity of work to realize fully that woodturning has many, many facets to it, and those evolve everyday. While color seems to be a current trend, I am quite sure the next "wind" will blow in some other trend.

Having seen a number of professional demos, I would make the general statement that most of the demonstrators are extremely engaged in their own technique as it is what interests them. Sometimes, one gets blinded by one's own obsession. I don't say that negatively, but I know I am caught up in the art forms, and tend to feel that is what the world of woodturning is about - until, I log on here and see the wonderful bowls and other type of turnings done by others. Clearly, there is much more to this world of woodturning than color.

That said, I enjoy using dyes in many of my turnings!

[Scott Hackler]

I would also disagree with his statement. While I believe there is a strong market for dyed and painted turnings, I think there is a larger consumer base for natural finished wood products. Noone can argue the beauty achieve by someone who knows how to dye or stain a piece of figured wood, but there are people who just don't care for anything but the "wood look". A lot of the time I see turnings that are heavily dyed or painted that are only done with that finish because the wood they turned was very bland. Same thing goes for a plain ole vase or HF that gets heavily decorated with a burner. Yes its shape can be attractive but hand it to an accomplished wood burner (Molly Winton or Cynthia Gibson, for example) and you'll get back a masterpiece.

Its all about artistic expression and yet showcasing the beauty of wood.

[Jamie Donaldson]

In logic Derry's statement would be labeled as a fallacy of a glittering generality, a statement based on personal inference or reasoning. My interest will always be centered on the qualities of wood, not how those qualities can be disguised to appear as another different material. I do sometimes play with color, but mostly applied to enhance the inherent qualities of the individual piece of wood.

[Dan Forman]

One other way to look at this, is that by emphasizing color over figure, one can make use of a lot of material which would otherwise look rather bland, freeing time and money which would otherwise go into chasing "the good stuff". Thus, it would work in the favor of the professional turner.

I do see a trend though, where turners are trying to go any new direction they can - color, piercing, carving, eccentric, to differentiate themselves from the more commonplace traditional forms. Such is the nature of any art or craft, always changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes not so much. There will always be those who want to push the boundaries.

As for drawing inspiration (or copying) from other mediums, I don't have a problem with that, happens all the time. Charlie Christian, the great Jazz guitarist, basically started playing horn solos on the guitar, and I'm glad he did. Our celebrated hollow forms are based on pottery, should we all become potters? :)

Personally though, I will be content exploring natural wood and figure for the most part, but would not be averse to dyes for certain things.

Dan

[Sean Hughto]

He's wrong. The future is plastics, my boy, plastics.

[Steve Kubien]

Perhaps the future in "art" part of woodturning is in colour, certainly not the functional woodenware part of woodturning. This is not to revisit the whole art vs craft mess.

Dan brings up one aspect of this...the use of coloring techniques will see the turning world utilizing more bland woods. I certainly hope so! Personally, I am offended whenever I see lovely burls carved and blasted away until you cannot even tell if the piece is made of wood. John Jordan's work is an obvious exception to this because the carving he does still allows the grain to show through. He uses a lot of "bland" woods.

[charlie knighton]

I believe there is no such thing as THE future of woodturning. Most of us woodturners are not making a living at it but turning because we enjoy it. For that reason our own future of woodturning is what we make of it.

I believe Dennis statement is the future and the past. our own woodturning goes thru stages and phases, we each have different goals for turning.

[Jim Underwood]

He's wrong. The future is plastics, my boy, plastics.

Exactly.. One day "wood" will be grown on a plastic tree.... And staining, glazing, painting, and dying will be obsolete. ;)

[Hayes Rutherford]

I disagree with Don Derry's statement. The future of woodturning depends on woodturners having a spouse with a good paying job.

[Bob Bergstrom]

I had one of my glitter bowls critiqued by Don Derry and John Jordan last year at Turn On Chicago. Jordan like the inside and the fiddle maple, but Derry really on excited when he flipped it over. He enjoyed the glitter and color while you could tell by John Jordan's facial expression that he would have preferred a more natural look. It is impossible to improve on the things that Mother Nature can do to a piece of wood. Mans attempts will never replace what is natural. There will always be trends and fashions. Beautiful is in the eyes of the beholder.

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[David E Keller]

I agree... I only agree because everybody else disagreed. If Hayes and Sean are right, the future of woodturning is plastic spouses...

[David DeCristoforo]

Did you ever see the movie "Hero"? I mean the one with Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia and Geena Davis? In it, Chevy Chase plays a newspaper editor and Geena Davis is a reporter. In one scene, she is calling in an impassioned "on the scene" report and the camera cuts to Chevy Chase who, in his inimitable style, bursts out with "What a crock of s***!!!". It's a hysterical moment, one almost worthy of sitting through the entire movie and a totally appropriate response to the statement made by your presenter.

[Jim Burr]

There is so much inherent beauty in wood I can't see the need to color it. On the other hand...some blah looking wood can easily be made "Wow!" by the addition of color. I think he may have been speaking from either a lack of experience, opportunity or modality.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I would suggest that there will be a time, place and market for both. As someone stated earlier, certain trends in any craft appear to be cyclic and is also a matter of personal taste. While the presenter is certainly welcome to his personal opinion, I doubt he had sustantial proof to back up his statement and only time will tell. You have to realize in a lot of these cases, a presenter or famous turner is known for a specific style or method. Making a living doing something so specialized becomes a real problem, thus they will make statements to promote sales of their products.

[Curt Fuller]

Perhaps he was referring to 'his' future. Although I hate to use the word "never" because never never seems to hold true, I think it will be a long time before the color bug bites me.

[Wally Dickerman]

If some of the old time turners and collectors heard Derry's statement they would be horrified. To add color or pyrography or anything else to cover the wood was just not done. Things have changed. Now almost anything goes. Turrners are contantly experimenting with new ways of enhancing turnings. And the public and most collectors are accepting it.

I have had a love affair with beautifully figured and colored wood as long as I can remember. I've experimented with dyes, but have always allowed the wood grain to come through. I've never used paint and doubt that I ever will.

I do admire the work of Don Derry, Giles Gilson, Bihn Pho and others who use color and do it well. It's just not for me.

[Michelle Rich]

I disagree with Don Derry's statement. The future of woodturning depends on woodturners having a spouse with a good paying job. :-0 :-0 Good 'un Hayes!!! you made me laugh this morning!!!

[Thom Sturgill]

I think Curt has it right - it may be 'his' future.

As a professional craftsman/artist one has to make several crucial decisions about one's market. Mike Mahoney, for instance is a production turner, gets a couple of hundred per bowl while more artistic turners like Jimmy Clewes may get thousands. Clewes spends more time selecting timbers and finishing his works, and gets paid in higher fees, while Mahoney says he pays no attention to grain orientation, fine finishes, etc because that cuts into turning and does not affect his price. Obviously, Derry has made decisions that color is key to his art.

[Derek Gilmer]

I'm new to the turning world but I have to disagree with the original proposition. And agree with what many have said. It is but one of many futures. Saying died turnings are the exclusive future of wood turning is about as wise as if Ford decided in 1995 that S.U.V.s were the exclusive future of 4 wheeled vehicles. There are way to many uses of turnings both functional and artistic to say any one is where everyone is going and where everyone is going to be buying pieces from.

Besides, wood is so pretty natural there is no reason to NEED to add dyes.

[Montgomery Scott]

Mr. Derry is full of it and himself. Only arrogance can explain the statement that his view of woodturning is to be accepted by turners and the market. Market reality dismisses this notion handily.

[Ken Hill]

What is that they say about opinions? I think it would apply to his statement:p

[Russell Neyman]

Noah, I was at the OPWTA demonstration in Chico, too, and it's easy to take Don Derry's statement out of context and over react to it. I don't think Don said that colored wood was "the future of woodworking" but, rather, it has it's place and there is growing interest in the technique for those who want to try something different. Don made it very clear that his work with color started as a casual experiment and developed into an art form that "sets his work apart" from other artists. Also, his process involves taking fairly ordinary and unremarkable pieces of wood -- I believe he said he almost never purchases it, but only harvests it -- and enhances them. Further, his technique is rarely to simply color it, but rather to use an airbrush to add brightly-colored features. His work is really, really beautiful and almost looks like blown glass. Beyond the coloring aspects of his artwork, he's an accomplished turner, too. Most of his pieces are an unusual style of hollow form.

In come circles, Don is somewhat of a celebrity, and it must be hard to keep your head on straight with that sort of status. I enjoyed his pragmatic approach to turning and his disregard for the rules of traditional woodturning. He has no problem joining two pieces of wood to create a hollow form if that's what it takes to achieve the desired effect. He flops pieces on their side and also has a clever cut-and-rejoin technique that gives him wonderfully asymmetrical results. His objective, I'm sure, was to cause our group to think; he certainly succeeded.

Thanks for posting this worthwhile topic.

Perhaps this all would make more sense if the Creekers saw samples of Don's work. Here are a couple, but I'll look around and see if I can find a link.

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[Gary Max]

I bet he could make Tupperware look good.

[Baxter Smith]

It is for me......unless I spill those little bottles of Transtint I picked up not long ago. The stuff was expensive!;):) I didn't hear Don Derry's statement but I tend to agree with Russels interpretation of it. I have resisted trying dye for a while. I guess I have broken through that barrier.....but I am not ready to give up the grain yet.:)

[Russell Neyman]

Baxter, I've messed with airbrushing on and off for several years, and Derry's presentation rekindled my interest in it. I haven't gone very far with it -- mostly, I have use it to do hide flaws and to highlight banding and other features -- but I can offer this advice: use less than you think you need because it looks best when it's very subtle. On many of his bowls, Derry applies it, then sands most of it back off, which leaves plenty of natural wood grain.

[Noah Barfield]

Hi all,

I appreciate everyone who has weighed in on this issue. It's been great to get so many different perspectives on the use of color!

To clarify: I certainly didn't mean for my original post to be in any way a slight on Don Derry. He's an amazing artist who has (rightfully so) created turnings that are displayed in museums and collections around the country. Also I don't mean to be derogatory towards anyone who uses color--I've seen some breath-takingly beautiful pieces on this site and would love to learn how to finish like that. As Russell mentioned, Don's approach allows him to work with locally harvested wood that would normally be rejected.

I wanted to ask a follow-up question to Dan's response. It's true that bowls and hollow-forms draw inspiration for their shapes from pottery. Yet there's a distinctive "woodiness" that separates the turned work from ceramics. While the form might resemble pottery, the color, figure, texture, etc. of turned wood (i.e. the medium) makes it its own art form. What I'm curious about though is once one medium becomes indistinguishable from another (i.e. turned wood that completely resembles blown glass), is there some sort of artistic line that is crossed?

Noah

[Jack Gaskins]

My future in wood turning will be burning or using dark colors here VERY SOON if i cant learn to get those scratches out of my bowls!!!!!!!!!!

[Bob Bergstrom]

I have had conversations with Don Derry twice in the past,(breakfast at Turn on Chicago and at his booth at the National Symposium in St. Paul. Both times he was as personal and passionate about turning as any of us. He was a very helpful answering my many questions on airbrushing. I would highly recommend anyone with the chance to hear him jump at it.

[Rick Markham]

He's wrong. The future is plastics, my boy, plastics.

Now that made me laugh!

[John Keeton]

...is there some sort of artistic line that is crossed?

NoahNoah, in a very true sense, there are no "artistic lines". Were that the case, there would never be a Don Derry, nor any of the millions of other artists of this and prior ages. In fact, I would submit that an "artist" is one that pushes the boundaries as far as they can be pushed to achieve what that artist perceives as "art". It may not be what you, nor I, may enjoy, but it art nonetheless.

[Russell Neyman]

Now that made me laugh!

The Graduate, right....?

so, I looked it up:

Mr. McGuire (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0111754/): I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000163/): Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0111754/): Are you listening?
Benjamin (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000163/): Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0111754/): Plastics.
Benjamin (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000163/): Exactly how do you mean?

[Alan Trout]

Doing my wood/organic material and resin pieces I get all kinds of reactions. Some love what I do and others hate it. I do it because it was a vision I had of what I wanted to do with my turning. I enjoy the challenges that is presents. and it is my creative niche. It is a bonus for me when others like my work. And I am always honored when someone wants to put one of my pieces in their home. But by no means do I expect everyone to like it. I am opened minded enough to enjoy a painted or died piece as well as more traditional pieces. Whats wonderful about our craft/art is that it is a big tent that allows us to explore different ideas techniques and media. What I get out of the statement that Don made is there is a lot or room to explore with color as it has not been used as much as other techniques. I agree with that perspective but I also agree that traditional techniques will be around for a very long time.



I would submit that an "artist" is one that pushes the boundaries as far as they can be pushed to achieve what that artist perceives as "art". It may not be what you, nor I, may enjoy, but it art nonetheless.

John, that is very well said and I agree 100%

Alan

[Jamie Donaldson]

I've known Don Derry for a long time, and it should always be understood that he is outspoken, but frequently with his tongue tucked firmly into his cheek. He's a really thoughtful and talented creative artist who like to rattle a cage now and then.

[Rick Markham]

Someone told me once... "the future is what you choose to make it" I'll listen to them. I do like his pieces though, and one day I'll start playing with the tons of transtint dyes I have waiting (I'm with Baxter, these things are expensive)

[Russell Neyman]

When you do, you only need a drop or two in either lacquer or denatured alcohol. Apply the colors a quarter-shade at a time. One of those bottles goes a long way. BTW, I use the tints in two-part epoxies when I do repair work, and it works in that role, too.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...the future of wood-turning is no longer in selecting beautifully figured wood and turning/finishing it in such a way that it accents this figure. Instead, the future lies in using color..."

OK... I forgot the smiley face. But my reply was prompted by the words "no longer" and "instead" in the above quote. If something like "for me" had been included, one would never have cause to question such a statement. But to make a "blanket" statement like this is pretty presumptuous. One could just as easily state that the future of turning is in pyro work or in piercing. And for some turners, that would be true. But I do not believe these things will ever completely trump form and figure. In fact, these can serve to obscure poor form. I have seen many pieces that have fantastic coloring or amazing carved or pierced or burnt detailing but that fall flat in the basic elements of balance, proportion and form that set a really great turning apart from one that lacks these elements.

[Robert Henrickson]

If you're going to completely cover the wood so that its identity is concealed, why use wood at all? Why not use some material that is more dimensionally stable and uniform texture? If the statement had been the future of "turning" rather than "wood-turning", it might fly a bit better. Definitely the sort of statement that my dissertation examiner would call "ex cathedra".

[Toney Robertson]

I definitely believe in the basic premise of Mr. Derry's statement. Not necessarily that color is the only future but IMO it is the present trend. In a very unscientific way, just look at the responses to pieces posted here. A round and brown piece, in general, does not get nearly the amount of responses that dyed/stained pieces do. It may be this particular forum or my mistaken perception, either of which could skew my conclusion.

[Sean Hughto]

... just look at the responses to pieces posted here. A round and brown piece, in general, does not get nearly the amount of responses that dyed/stained pieces do.

A couple of thoughts:

Many people mistake something different for something good. Different may stand out and be attractive in its departure from the familar, but it is not automatically good just because it catches eyes.

Popularity does not equal quality either. For example, McDonalds is very popular.

[Toney Robertson]

A couple of thoughts:

Many people mistake something different for something good. Different may stand out and be attractive in its departure from the familar, but it is not automatically good just because it catches eyes.

Popularity does not equal quality either. For example, McDonalds is very popular.

Totally agree on the quality issue but I guess popularity is what I and I assumed that Mr. Derry was speaking of since neither one of us mentioned quality. I believe that these things go in cycles and it appears that we are in a cyclical upswing for all sorts of wood enhancements with color/dye seeming to be the most popular at the moment. I am NOT a dye/color person since IMO you can not improve on Mother Nature, so all of my comments are tainted by that viewpoint but I did dye some curly maple pendants recently and they went in a flash. This might fall into your category of something different being equated to something good but either way it appears to me to be the current/future trend and many wood turners are supplying pieces that addresses that demand.

[Sean Hughto]

Totally agree on the quality issue but I guess popularity is what I and I assumed that Mr. Derry was speaking of since neither one of us mentioned quality.I guess it raises the question of what the aim of woodturning is. In the art vein of the medium, I assume, like in all other fine art, the aim is to make the highest quality art possible - masterpieces. We do have other veins though - folks who make utility stuff, for example. But there too, I would assert that quality is the aim. There may be a vein of woodworking the aim of which is to simple sell alot of objects to make money, and I suppose there, popularity is king.