Saturday, November 21, 2009

Day 95: Good golly miss Molly


The Arizona Woodturners Assoc. had Molly Winton in town today for an all day demonstration.  I've known of Molly's work for a long time and was lucky enough to receive 2 of her pieces in an anonymous gift exchange back in early 2007 (picture below).

When I was elected Vice President of the AWA I knew one of my duties was going to be booking our demonstrators and I knew that Molly was near the top of my list.  It took almost a year to bring everything together but today was the big day.









The piece on the left is Osage Orange, 2 3/4" X 3 3/4" and the piece on the right is Cherry 1 3/4" X 1 1/2".  The smaller piece features Molly's signature branding which is one of the things she demonstrated today.









Turning a small hollow form in Box Elder which she will then use to demonstrate several different surface enhancement techniques, including carving and texture.











Carving on another piece that has had black  Gesso applied.  The carving reveals the color of the wood underneath the wood.  I believe she said this was Cherry.











Burning in one of her signature Mustangs on a piece.  The Basket weave pattern shown is also done with a wood burner and will eventually cover the entire bottom of this piece (it's upside down in this photo) which will then be dyed completely black.  Molly also covered making your own custom woodburning tips, including the basket weave pattern that she's known for.  The wood here is Alder.






Two examples of her work.  The piece on the left is more recent, the piece on the right is much older, one of her first.  She talked a lot about the form of the piece and how it should compliment the enhanced surface.  The form on the right is nice but the classic greek form and collar don't match the primitive nature of the surface enhancement.  The piece on the left is more organic and is similar to what you might see in Native American pottery which matches the mustang theme.




Another look at a similar piece to the one above.  Gesso is applied for the black color, the texture area in between the mustangs was textured with a woodburning tip and then had gesso applied, it is meant to resemble the ground being disturbed by the hooves of the mustangs as they stampede.








2 piece from Molly's Dzilla series using her carving technique from above.  I believe the piece on the left is Cherry, on the right is Maple.












2 more pieces.  On the larger one you can see that she's also started altering the openings on some of her vessels, This one has been carved to have a triangular opening.  She also covered this process briefly.










One more piece, This one meant to resemble a sand dollar.  It's been hollowed out through the bottom and then carved.  She didn't cover this technique but I'm guessing that the after it was carved she covered the entire piece with tinted Gesso before sanding back the entire surface to reveal the wood in the high spots and leave the Gesso in all of the recessed areas.

More of Molly's work can be found on her website, http://www.turningmaven.com and in galleries such as Del Mano Galleries, http://www.delmano.com/artists/wood/mWinton/portfolio01.htm

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