Collection: William R. Haines

William R. Haines, woodwork    Conway, MA

"I love turning green wood. There is an immediacy to it, a closeness, a sense of direct and instant involvement. I can find a piece of the tree I want to work with and bring it into the shop and start to work on it - now. It will take 6 months to finish the urn, but I can start now. That start requires a focus and a quickness of pace, once the wood is on the lathe it needs to be shaped and hollowed out before it dries too much - if it dries too much it will crack. Then patience. The rough urn needs to be dried slowly, thoroughly, over a period of months, before it can be returned to the lathe to be finished.

The pandemic forced us to hibernate for a year, it has been rough, but it provided me the opportunity to finish building the shop and get back to woodturning after an extended hiatus. I started woodturning 22 years ago with master woodturner Walter Goodridge. Woodturning techniques, tools, machines, working green wood, drying wood, finishing - Walter is such a generous, innovative teacher. It’s been fun putting all that knowledge back to use this past year."