Plates & Platters: My Fellowship in Maine

Over the past month, I’ve been participating in a fellowship at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. I was here last March as well, and it’s a treat returning to a familiar place. The school’s main programs are longer-term woodworking intensives in furniture making & woodturning, but they also have an awesome fellowship program for professional woodworkers who are at various stages in their careers, to develop their designs and produce new work. I’m here for a six week stint, but some people stay up to six months. There is a fully equipped woodworking shop, lumber onsite, and a log merchant nearby who helps me with my greenwoodworking needs.

The pencil points to where my workbench is - smack dab in the middle of the Fellowship Building.

Currently there is more white snow than green grass.

Currently there is more white snow than green grass.

One of my main goals in coming back to the school was to make plates from large diameter trees - specifically cherry because I like incorporating the contrast of the white sapwood and pink heartwood.

This is how I layout plates that I turn on the lathe. I needed to get a large diameter log so that I could get quartersawn blanks and blanks with relatively parallel grain. This is in order to minimize warping as they dry.

This is how I layout plates that I turn on the lathe. I needed to get a large diameter log so that I could get quartersawn blanks and blanks with relatively parallel grain. This is in order to minimize warping as they dry.

The first week I got here, the resourceful and knowledge-full Mason McBrien took me to the log merchant in Windsor, ME and we selected two large diameter logs for me to work with, and an additional log for the students in the woodturning intensive. It was amazing to learn that the crane was manufactured in Two Harbors, Minnesota! A town a few hours from Grand Marais, MN, where I was living for the past year and a half.

This was my first time doing a production run of woodenware and below are the results. I created 7” and 8-7/8” diameter plates. They work really nicely together. I’m selling them as pairs, because by seeing two plates side by side, you can appreciate the design of the sapwood and heartwood better. They’re for sale on my website until the end of this week (2/22), and then I’ll sell them through stores. Next up, I’ll be working on hand carved platters - more photos and stories to come!

Pile of completed plates!

Finished plate & apple for scale.

Finished plate & apple for scale.

A stack of cherry plates with the sapwood lined up.

Can you handle it? New online store & handled bowl designs

I’m excited to announce that after my yearlong apprenticeship with Jim Sannerud I’m officially ready to sell my bowls! My friend Mikey Hoy created an online store and you can check it out here.

Towards the end of my project I became interested in making handled ale bowls based off of traditional Swedish and Norwegian designs. I was particularly inspired after visiting the archives of Vesterheim, the national Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. Below are photos I took of some of my favorite bowls they have in storage. This winter I plan to make more handled bowls and am excited to explore new shapes and designs.

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Lillehammer, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway. 1800. 4-1/2" diameter, birch.

Lillehammer, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway. 1800. 4-1/2" diameter, birch.

Norway. c. 1800. 6" diameter.

Norway. c. 1800. 6" diameter.

This is thought to have been an individual dipper for serving ale. 4" diameter. Date unknown.

This is thought to have been an individual dipper for serving ale. 4" diameter. Date unknown.

Experiments in Paint

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to meet with the traditional craftsperson-extraordinaire, Jarrod StoneDahl, and receive feedback regarding the designs and painting techniques of my wooden bowls. He shared great insights about traditional Swedish wooden bowls and one that I’d like to share is about color.

Traditional Swedish bowls were painted with a variety of colors, but a commonly used color unique to Sweden is falun red. This iron oxide-based pigment was historically derived from various copper mines in Sweden and named after the famous mines of Falun, in Dalarna, Sweden. It’s the same striking color that decorates many Swedish cottages and barns alike.

Before meeting with Jarrod I had only used premixed milk paint on my bowls. Milk paint is an incredibly durable and non-toxic mixture of pigment, lime and the milk protein, casein. The casein makes the paint absorb into porous surfaces like wood, and the lime makes it soluble in water. It’s excellent for woodenware because it is completely food safe. One of the drawbacks however is that the lime in traditional milk paint creates a relatively opaque and dull hue, limiting most of the color pallet to pastels and inhibiting efforts to highlight the wood’s grain.

I wanted to get closer to traditional colors and create paints that were also semi-transparent. I purchased falun red pigment from Earth Pigments and experimented by creating egg tempera paint as well as boiled linseed oil paint. Although egg tempera was not typically used on bowls in Sweden, it is a traditional method used for painting wooden surfaces. Linseed oil and pigment was commonly used to treat woodenware in Sweden. I was curious to compare the two techniques. Below are the results!

#1: Egg Tempera

  • 1 Egg yoke : 1 Tablespoon of water (shaken in a closed container)

  • 2 Tspn falun red pigment

This mixture dried quickly and was relatively opaque.

#2: Egg Tempera – slightly diluted with water

  • 1 Egg yoke : 1 Tbsp of water (shaken in a closed container)

  • 2 Tspn of falun red pigment

  • 1 Tbsp of water mixed in after the emulsion was made

This mixture was easier to paint onto the wood but not any more transparent.

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#3: Boiled Linseed Oil – with primer

Layer 1:

  • Allback boiled organic linseed oil

Layer 2:

  • 2 Tbsp of Allback boiled organic linseed oil

  • 1 Tspn of falun red pigment

For the first layer I painted on a primer coat of just boiled linseed oil. For the second coat, I painted on a mixture of boiled linseed oil and falun red pigment. This was one of my favorite results because it is the most transparent and the wood grain really shines through. 

#4: Boiled Linseed Oil – without primer

  • 2 Tbsp of Allback boiled organic linseed oil

  • 1 Tspn of falun red pigment

I painted on just one layer that was a mixture of boiled linseed oil and falun red pigment. The result is darker and slightly more opaque than the bowl with primer.

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Contemplating & Carving Curves

One of the reasons I am drawn to bowl turning, spoon carving and boat building is because of the beautiful sculptural and feminine curves that are inherent in so many designs. The concave and convex lines of traditional Scandinavian wooden ale bowls are particularly appealing to me. The characteristic concave curve near the rim of the bowl serves multiple functions: it makes it easier to place one’s lips on the edge of the bowl for drinking, it minimizes spilling, and it’s simply beautiful.

I really enjoy the lines on these two bowls that I made earlier this summer. Birch, 6” diameter, 2015.

This 18th century ale bowl struck me because it not only has the concave curve at the rim, it also has multiple concave curves that are divided by lines down its convex side. Image from Norske drikkekar av tre, Universitetsforlaget, 1975.

This is my attempt to turn similar lines on an ale bowl.

Birch, 7” diameter, 2015.

Birch, 7” diameter, 2015.

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