Werner-Wilson Crafts

I am a member of the American Association of Woodturners; I taught himself to turn bowls, platters, pens, magic wands, and other items on the lathe.  I also make bread boards and cutting boards, bottle caddies, keepsake engraved word cloud plaques, and other items made from wood. 

I am mindful about the environmental impact of woodcraft, so I engage in practices to maintain wood as in important natural resource.  For example, most of the wood for bowls (except for a few of those made from burls) were processed from reclaimed wood – trees that were damaged in a storm or removed by the owner because of disease or for another reason.  For larger bowls, I remove smaller cores so that multiple bowls are created from a single bowl blank which reduces waste.  I often work with wood that other woodturners might discard because of defects (cracks, decay) in the wood, but enjoy the challenge of incorporating the defect into the design and beauty of the object.  That work is influenced by the Japanese craft of Kintsugi (金継ぎ) which treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

Much of my work is simple in design, functional, and food safe.  I enjoy knowing that people are serving food in bowls and platters that I created.  It is satisfying to know that someone is taking notes or actually hand-writing a letter with one of my hand made pens.  I also enjoy creating objects that are more decorative in nature.  This includes natural edge bowls that have delicate bark edges, hollow vessels, and bowls and platters created with “missing pieces” that are inspired by Shel Silverstein’s book of the same name.