I wrote about wood burls last year, here. In recent weeks, I’ve revisited some of these (let’s call them) projects and find the putzing around to be both fun and cathartic. Please enjoy some prose on burl bowls revisited.

Burls?… Ahhhh, What?

So what am I doing with these burls anyway?

I have no idea, truth be told.

Initially, my notion was to fashion a chunk o’ wood into a bowl.

Thazzit… Simple as that.

I envisioned some kind of woodworking folk art, like you might find at a craft fair. A tangible, imperfect piece of hand-crafted authenticity.

Diligently laboring away, imagination got the better of me…

I saw grandeur. I saw mystique!

On special occasions, my wondrous quaich would emerge from silken shroud, as dilettantes queued, patiently waiting to receive libation.

Raising the ceremonial vessel above my head…

Wait, what?!

Oh, not that direction…OK.

In practice, experimentation evolved into artwork.

Extremely… “rustic”… artwork.

How Did You Make That?

Adhering to a strict self-imposed ban on electric tools, I decided to make impractical projects exponentially more difficult and time consuming…

My tools?

A spoon gouge and sandpaper.

To explain myself, I must take you back to last summer.

On a fine July morning, M (my fiance) and I hopped in the car to make the trek over to the Brimfield Fair. For the uninitiated, the Brimfield Fair touts itself as “America’s oldest outdoor antiques flea market.” It’s a sprawling mass of vendors, covering acres of land on either side of a country road in a small New England town.

You’ll find everything from farm tools to postmodern furniture. The fair makes for a really fun day, if you enjoy finding a bargain, looking at folky stuff or just checking out all the interesting characters.

We spent a full day!

Legs aching from exertion, we trudged back to the car in the late afternoon with a handful of “treasures,” acquired via playful haggle.

I walked away with my prized spoon gouge, a chisel and a pair of horse shoes (to be gifted to my brother for his yet-to-be-constructed backyard horseshoe pit).

Why Did You Make That?

The tranquility.

I consciously make efforts to achieve flow state more readily. For me, morning is king. A cup of coffee, ambient music and the stillness of the morning elicit a clear, calm and creative headspace.

Here, time is distorted, it hastens. M checks in periodically, both surprised at my intensity and slightly concerned with my obsessive devotion (to something so devoid of utility).

Progress supplants time as appropriate metric.

I am free.

Free to experiment; free to be at play; free to express through diverse medium.

Am I beginning to appreciate why my parents never threw out anything? I grew up enveloped in the potential energy of “future art projects.” Anything could be built, created, designed.

These ruminations take me by the hand, lead me about. I drift through oceans, but inevitably find my way back to the natural world. Back to the land.

These burls, these hunks of wood represent something.

They are Nature’s corporeal artifacts.

I can hold them, feel their smoothness here, their texture there. I can see their warts. They’re obvious. If I break off a piece, I can’t replace it. I can only “fix” it, by smoothing it, wearing it down. I could just put it in the campfire… but I won’t. I will cherish it. I’ll make it into the best burl it can be. I can see what’s inside that burl, its potential.

The Goods?

So, what are they?

I have no idea.

First “Bowl”

This is the original burl – well, already burned out and sanded down a bit.

My pops put this little burl into my hand one day and said, “I’ve got something for you.”

Messin’ around the campfire, I started “fashioning it,” placing an ember in its natural depression and blowing concentrated air.

I let the fire do the heavy lifting.

Many sanding sessions later, I began to envision the piece, not as a bowl, but a ladle, instead. The shape is spoon-like. I could fashion a pliable metal handle onto the spoon-like object and bango! Ladle.

But for some reason, I can’t quite accept the idea of attaching a handle to it. I also really enjoy the fact that it “sits” perfectly on a table by itself, as is. I think it would work aesthetically as a ladle, but I like it better as a stand-alone piece.

So, for now, it will remain simple, unadorned, elegant and… completely useless.

After about a decade of sanding, I couldn’t look at it anymore. I knew it was finished and ready to be shellacked.

“Nature’s Grotto”

My third attempt at… something.

After burning through a sidewall on a previous burl (pictured here), I decided to use a piece of green wood.

I figured I could control the burn more easily.

And, in the spirit of full disclosure, I must add: this (below) isn’t even a burl! Shhhhhh, don’t tell the folk art cops!

Instead, this is just a funky cross section of a log that happened to have its center slightly rotted out. Good spot for some embers…

I thought I was ready to go big and make my bowl.

My choice of unseasoned red oak made for painstakingly slow work.

As in, strip and/or chunk away a cross section of hardwood, one layer at a time like Polly-o-string cheese…

An interesting experience if you’ve got spare hours (and a spare back). I think M may have thought (thinks) I was (am) losin’ me marbles, as I scraped away at a dirty, moss covered burnt-out log on our porch.

No, honey. It’s an art project.

Totally sane. Yes, uh-huh.

As the vision of the bowl slinked away, a new reality emerged: The Grotto.

An homage to the vestiges of “the old neighborhood,” the piece alludes to what I call the “bathtub virgin mary’s,” the religious lawn/garden statues that were once quite popular in our neighborhood. They’re retro and unique, artifacts of a different era.

As these ceramic and porcelain grottos provide shelter to the virgin mary, my natural grotto gives quarter to the Insisting Simplicity cairn.

“Snailkey”

After blowing air on half-burning pieces of wood for hours at a time around a few campfires, people started giving me burls.

Ha, nice!

This one looks sort of like a snail.

I think I’ll try to make this into somekind of snail lawn ornament or paper weight. That, or an iPhone.

“Disaster”

This is the second “gift.” I have no clue what to do with it. Someone else might call this a “complete disaster.”

Unlike the snail burl, this dude looks pretty solid. It doesn’t look like I’ve found my bowl yet.

To Be Continued…

Unfortunately, these new burls might need to hang back a bit til next summer when we can sit around the campfire again. Hope to see you there!