Your two biggest sources of inspiration for turning

[Roger Chandler]

Thought this would be an interesting topic .....it might open doors in some minds..........I know inspiration can be found in many things in nature and the art world.

When it comes to what you find inspiration in for turning projects.........what would you say over your turning "career" has been the two best sources of inspiration for you?

My biggest I would say is the work shown on this SMC turners forum, and the AAW photo galleries.. The other would be forms in pottery that I have seen over the years in travels and museums.

[Scott Hackler]

I would be lying if I didn't admit to being inspired by the pieces I have seen posted here and other sites, symposiums and magazines. But I am really drawn to the curves in nature, more expecially the curves in water droplets.

[Jerry Marcantel]

All the pieces made by SMC members, and all the pottery pieces I've seen during my life... Jerry (in Tucson)

[Bob Bergstrom]

Being a ex football coach I have spent 35 years studying video in great detail. Start stop, slow motion reverse,
slow again. The other would be having the opportunity to live in the Chicago area and associating with both famous and very talented turners in three woodturning clubs.

[russell dietrich]

The library has books of paintings (especially still life paintings), and archeology (pictures of artifacts). My second source is the plantation homes/museums in this area, and museums I have visited elsewhere.

[Robert Henrickson]

My primary inspiration would have to be the pottery I've worked with in a 40 year archaeological career (Turkey, Iran, Iraq [and Crete]), 5000 BC-150 AD (Hittite, Phrygian, Persian, Lydian, Greek, Roman, Elamite, just to name some of the historical era [post 3000 BC] cultures I've worked on. Prehistoric of all sorts.

[Jim Burr]

People that aren't allowed on here anymore.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Southwest pottery is one source but my biggest source is my wife, Colleen! She is always pointing out forms in magazines, stores, on TV, when we are driving, etc. She has more faith in my turning abilities than I do at times and it is her enthusiasm in what I create that pushes me to try new things! It just doesn't get any better than that!!

[Alan Trout]

My daily routine and environment are my biggest influence. I always have a camera with me. When I see things or shapes that I like I take a picture. Some things I make are from memories of my childhood and generally have more emotion involved. Shapes of objects will often trigger my memories or emotions.

Alan

[Bernie Weishapl]

I would say there are several turners that have influenced me along with magazines. Love Southwest style pottery also.

[kevin nee]

Before I turned, I was at a yard sale admiring a turned bowl marked 50.
It was well worth 50 dollars but I didn't have that much with me. The
woman having the sale said "you can have that for a quater" I enjoyed
that bowl for a while. It got lost in a move.
My wife went to Norway to visit relatives and a cousin sent a bowl turned
from a tree on family land. We still have that one. Both stories are from
about 25 years ago. I have only been turning about 5 years but have
jumped in both feet

[Michelle Rich]

There was no internet, nor many books when I started to turn..girls couldn't take shop, nor were we accepted in stores to buy tools. So my inspiration came from myself until recently, when I became aware of Hans W. & Harvey F. I have given them credit many times for the inspiration for my negative space designs

[Allan Ferguson]

Taking the things that I see through life and what I then can see within the piece of wood. A line or shape may well develop that I like and can influence the shape and final outcome. It is fun to explore shapes/forms.

[Barry Elder]

My inspirations will alway be the same: GOD and his many forms like hurricanes, nature, art, geography, etc.

[Ian James Webster]

I'm still rather new at this so almost all of my 'experience' and therefore inspiration has come from this website. The rest is from my imagination.

[David DeCristoforo]

I've been on the road for most of the last few days and thinking, on and off, about this question. Well, really thinking more about inspiration in general. It can come from others or it can come from mysterious sources beyond our understanding.

Most people are at least familiar with Jorma Kaukonen's brilliant and inspired guitar instrumental "Embryonic Journey". (If not, you really should give it listen.) I must have listened to this piece of music a million times and, at one point, even learned to play a bit of it. Being, at the time, possessed of the fantasy of becoming a guitar playing musician, I struggled to understand where such inspiration "came from". This piece is orders of magnitude beyond anything else I had ever heard Jorma play and I could not help but wonder how he "came up with it".

It was years later that I heard Jorma answer this question in an interview. Apparently I was not the only one wondering! His answer was simple. It came to him in a dream. The instant he awoke, he got his guitar and played this piece note for note as if he had been playing it for years. It became a "signature" for him and he has never played it differently. No "variations" or "improvisational riffs". His reason for this is that he considered this a "gift", never felt that it was "his", that there was some intention involved that was beyond his comprehension. But, in respect for the gift, he played it every time exactly as he first "heard" it.

This kind of inspiration may elude most of us but I believe that we can all be "open" to receive gifts like this from wherever they come from. We don't need to know or understand the source. We need only to be grateful for the gift.

[Roger Chandler]

Very well said, Mr. D! While I may have my understanding of inspiration, it may not be the same as others..........I also think there are some rare moments in our lives, when we are indeed given "gifts" as you put them............it has a spiritual component in my opinion and belief.............that kind sure differs from the things we see or hear on occasion and they alert our senses......even those senses of imagination and thought..........a dream that comes to us and changes the course of our thinking may very well indeed fit into that category.

[Chip Sutherland]

Nature and Man (art & architecture)

[Moses Weisberg]

My general irritation at work and college.

[Ken Glass]

Roger,
I have been struggling with your question this morning on how to explain my inspiration in turning. I guess I would have to say, after looking at turnings such as Cindy Drozda's amazing Finials, David Ellsworth's form and technique, Richard Raffan's tool technique, Jimmy Clewes eye for form, Malcolm Tibbetts amazing segmented designs and execution, and countless others work, they all inspires me to create. Added with a desire to excel and an imagination that rarely is fulfilled, those would be my combination of the two things that inspire me to turn.

[Kevin Lucas]

I would have to say it is here and the local turners meetings. I don't have the dvds or magazine subscriptions (I'm a cheapskate hehe). It is the things I see turned that make me go "How did they do that?". The imagination gets kicked into gear. Talented folks here doing stuff that amazes me ) Add in way too many hours of web searches for turning and neander wood working pages, how to and videos.

[robert baccus]

I think I did it in reverse. Turned a few bowls in school and started looking at the pueblo bowls in Santa Fe. I've vacationed there 41 times since 1950. I always make it a point to visit the pueblos as well as the galleries and the artistsalways welcome interested people. They are glad to share their methods and reasons for the different shapes. N. M. is one of the two places in the USA that has not given up their native cultures and been homoginized by the neon world. These people and fantastic pottery is what inspires me. Old Forester

[Sid Matheny]

I guess mostly from different woodworking forums. Not being able to hear videos well enough to understand them and with authors not caring enough to use closed caption, I don't buy any.

Sid

[John Beaver]

Interesting thinking about this.... I kind of think of my work as "evolution of design," in that I really think one thing leads to another. The original concepts come to me from everywhere (from nature to greek pottery, to just appearing in my head) but from there it's a matter of working with an idea and seeing where it will take me. I often do mock-ups and then play with them, cutting them here and there, and then studying them and seeing what else I can do with them. I also do a lot of drawings of a concept and that usually leads me different directions. There are certain themes that I tend to stick with (contrast, motion, depth, and of course I like the "how do you do that?" factor) that are the basis for my art, but mostly it's experimentation and trial and error.

[Steven Green]

I get a lot of inspiration from this forum. Best turners in the world for my money. The rest comes from curves and shapes in nature, rocks, live or dead trees and anything else that catches my eye. Since I'm only a three year old turner with a sabatical into construction while our kids were growing up. I turned spindles in my teens and a few boxes under the guidance of a master I'd known since I was a small boy. Now, three new years into the journey I've found I still am enjoying turning more each day and won't stop now till they close the lid.

[Richard Jones]

Richard Raffan & Joe Landon