Updated site

[Phil Streeting]

My woodturning design site has been updated several times since I last posted and now includes lots of useful information, links, photo galleries and a new site for those interested in design matters. If anyone has interesting digital photos of textures, seeds, plants, beachcombing finds etc, from the southern hemisphere that may inspire turners I would be happy to include galleries of them on the site. I am also finding it difficult to track down websites and galleries for leading designer woodturners, from Australia and New Zealand, to include in woodturninggallery.com so any help would be appreciated.
Happy surfing!

Happy Christmas and Productive New Year to everyone.

Phil Streeting

www.woodturningdesign.info (http://www.woodturningdesign.info)
www.woodturninggallery.com (http://www.woodturninggallery.com)

[Phil Streeting]

For those who have visited my site and would like to try basic 3D for free I have just found the link below where 3DPlus3 can be downloaded as freeware. If there is a demand I can provide a gallery on my site with suitable wood textures to apply to models created. Or I can e-mail.

http://www.smartdownloads.net/downloading-24745.html (http://www.smartdownloads.net/downloading-24745.html)

[rsser]

Thanks Phil.

I think the noted turner Mike Darlow now has a book out on design too.

btw http://www.woodturningdesign.info/General%20Interest.html
was scrambled in my browser; IE at 1024 x 768

[Edit: if there's one area of skill that turners can get more return from than spending more time on design I don't know it. Even just sketching out poss shapes within a blank profile on graph paper].

[bsrlee]

Works in Firefox 1.0.6.

I use both IE & Firefox - Firefox handles things like this forum better with multiple tabs & IE is better at handling constantly changing URL's like web-comics & novels.

[Phil Streeting]

:) Thanks for the comment Ern, I am aware there is a problem on the General Interest page in I.E. Partly due to my lack of knowledge in page construction in Go-Live, learning as I go along! There was a problem in layers that I couldn't resolve so I will re-construct next update. Trouble with web pages is what you see when you construct is not always what you get when it goes on-line.

Thanks also for the comment about design, it would be great to get a discussion happening on here to discover views on the subject. I have Mike Darlow's book on design as I am sure many other turners do. Hopefully my site is helping to address some of the points in his summary, in particular 2. and 3.

For me his reference to 'establishments' has resonance. Maybe turners should ask themselves when they design and make who they are doing it for. The potential buyer or their peer group? Are we currently observing the demise of woodturning as we know it and if we are why? Pottery saw a renaissance in the 1960's and 70's when Society was hankering for a return to old values. Studio potteries sprang up all over the UK but disappeared as quickly they arrived. Pottery became ceramics and new markets for quality designed artifacts surfaced. Similar things happened in jewellery, metal, fibre arts (basketry and weaving) and other crafts. Has the same happened in turning?

My site was originally set up in response to criticisms read on forum pages and magazine articles where established turners seemed to be critical about turners apparently producing work in their style. In my view, happy to produce books and articles and make money on 'do it my way' but unhappy when turners did just that. We all go through learning curves in making and sometimes it is appropriate to copy in order to learn technique. To move beyond this takes time and effort.
I have been hoping to see articles from leading turners describing their influences, how they research design ideas and how they interpreted them to encourage aspiring turners to look beyond the immediate craft as a source of inspiration and aspiration. A second site Woodturning Gallery was proposed to do just that and was intended to promote the best in British Woodturning but it fell foul of establishment views and no co-operation was forthcoming. Basically it was a question of who would be the arbiter of taste. In the end it was decided that the site would be devisive and that currently creative woodturning in the UK was adequately served by existing sources of information. If anyone can find it on the Net please let me know!
The notion of presenting the ideas and sources behind the work is important if you wish to change the perceptions both of makers and buyers and encourage a fresh approach to design and making.
Interestly some of the more challenging articles in the Links sections of the design site are by Australian crafts people.

[rsser]

Good topics to debate. Art vs craft; the classic rules of proportion vs their flouting for artistic purposes. We could get through a bottle or two of port on these ;-}

Seems to me though that finding an authentic voice is the work of years.

As for property, there is of course no patent on motifs or stylistic themes. The bottom line is how you put it together. What's striking about turning in the last decade is its use just as the rough shaping of wood for sculptures - the best of these are impossible to copy.

Came across this recently; haven't read them but the titles look interesting:
http://www.woodturningcenter.org/acrobat/TP_Winter2005web.pdf

[AussieGreg]

Hi All,
I stumbled across this about a week ago, thought people might find it interesting, there is only 1 or 2 dead links, but I found some interesting stuff.
http://wr.avwa.org/memberwebsites.html

Just to let everyone know I am a Software and website developer, need a hand or have a question about coding for websites please feel free to email me, but please mention that you got my email address from here , as I am only offering this free to readers here,

For any woodworking groups that need a website including hosting I can setup and host their website for free on my business web server.

[rsser]

Thanks AG. That's a kind offer.

[AussieGreg]

Nps Ern,
Spose I had better give people a way of contacting me, it might make the offer useful then LOL

PS Greg, I deleted your email address. Use the email through the profile. You then know that it is from this site and can reduce the likelihood of being spammed. .