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INTERNATIONAL TURNING EXCHANGE Research * Exploration * Collaboration The Wood Turning Center is proud to host its eighth consecutive International Turning Exchange (ITE), a unique and exceptional residency program. ITE residents spend eight weeks working and living together at the University of the Arts (UArts), Philadelphia, Pa. Four lathe artists, one photojournalist, one furniture maker/educator and one scholar were selected for participation, representing five countries: Germany, Australia, France, Canada and the USA. 2002 ITE LATHE ARTISTS Laurent Guillot France Laurent has worked as a professional drummer, playing several types of music. He began designing and building musical instruments because he prefers them to be made of natural wood. At home, he turns on an oak lathe which he made. Laurent believes that nature is the inspiration of all creative endeavors from aeronautics to architecture to engineering. Because he values the instinctive emotional relationship with a work of art, he avoids over-planning his multi-axis turnings -though he does make many small sketches in wood. Once he begins a piece, he works quickly. Friedrich Kuhn Germany Friedrich is multifaceted artist working with experimental film, theater, music, sculpture, and furniture. His process-oriented turned sculptures are labor intensive, involving many stages of carving and abrading the surfaces of his turnings, sometimes completely eroding areas to expose a jagged profile- as he says, sometimes “everything ends up miles away from the beginning idea.” Friedrich’s quest for unique surfaces includes bleaching, coloring and sometimes making his own tools. He has described his relationship to a piece of wood as having the complexity of a relationship with a person. Rüdiger Marquarding Germany When a 1995 illness forced Rüdiger to give up his profession of teaching, he dedicated his time to his hobby which began with turning wooden tops for his children. His work as this time concentrated on small boxes and wooden jewelry. A recent body of work drew attention to the beauty of naturally occurring patterns of cracks and checks in ebony by filling them with a silver compound. At the 2002 ITE, Rüdiger is exploring the possibilities of utilizing tubular modules of ebony in an almost cellular way to construct different types of objects. Gordon Ward Australia A lathe turner since 1984, Gordon is much in demand throughout Australia and New Zealand as a demonstrator of turning techniques. He’s designed and built special tools for turning the inside of vessels. Gordon is also a serious student of botany who salvages the majority of his timber from the forest floor and often carves Australian plant motifs in his work. He invests many of his carved turnings with curving, almost Art Nouveau lines, but others are more symmetrical. In the 2002 ITE, Gordon embarked on several simultaneous projects including variations on the mathematical Moebius strip structure. 2002 ITE PHOTOJOURNALIST Robin Rice USA Assistant Adjunct Professor at the University of the Arts, Robin is a writer and curator with a special interest in crafts. Although her father was an amateur furniture maker, she was introduced to the field of wood turning through work with the curators of the Wood Turning Center’s 2001 Challenge VI exhibition. The ITE has given Robin a unique opportunity to see many examples of work by the premier turners, and introduced her to critical issues from the perspectives of artists in the field. 2002 ITE FURNITURE MAKER Gordon Peteran Canada A faculty member at the Ontario College of Art and Design and wood and metal worker who has been designing and making works for corporate offices, public institutions and clients for almost 20 years, Gordon is deeply concerned with theoretical issues of art and craft. Though his interaction with the turning field has been limited, he sees it as one with “huge momentum full of vibrant energy.” He arrived at the ITE with a list of questions relating to process, perception, craft, and art which he proposes for discussion and a plan for an installation which comments on lathe turning without incorporating turned wood. 2002 ITE SCHOLAR Ritchie Garrison USA Associate Professor in the Office of Advanced Studies, Wintertur Museum, Ritchie’s forthcoming book Two Carpenters: Architecture and Building in Early New England deals with the work of Calvin and George Stearns, a father and son carpentry business in Massachusetts. He is also beginning a study of the evolution of the center table from its eighteenth century forms. In his week at the ITE, Ritchie did research in the Wood Turning Center library, completed a neoclassical turned candle stand which he designed three years ago, and contributed to numerous late night discussions. View the Exhibit