Turning Intensive
January 11 – March 5, 2021
Audience
The eight-week Turning Intensive is designed to prepare woodworkers for successful careers as professional woodturners, and is also open to amateurs who wish to bring their work up to a professional level.
Curriculum
The Turning Intensive curriculum leads students through a sequence of hands-on projects that develop foundation skills in all facets of professional woodturning.
Architectural woodturning – learn to construct and turn columns, balusters, newel posts, and moldings using techniques for duplication, reeding, fluting, twists, split turning, rosettes, barrel staving, segmenting, and more.
Production woodturning – learn to turn production bowls, platters, stair parts, furniture parts, and other objects with consistency, speed, and quality.
Creative woodturning – develop your aesthetic voice by making one-of-a-kind functional and sculptural objects that are turned and carved.
Furniture components – learn to turn and join legs, pulls, finials, rungs, and other furniture parts.
Milling – gain competence with the table saw, band saw, drill press, lathe, router, and other woodworking machines for stock preparation, forming, and joinery.
Sharpening – learn how to grind and sharpen turning, carving, and woodworking tools such as gouges, skews, v-tools, and chisels.
Tool making – solve unusual turning challenges by making your own turning tools, jigs, and attachments.
Business Practices – learn about estimating time and calculating competitive prices in the woodworking market, keeping books and other useful records, and marketing.
Application Process
Participants are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. No application is required.
All experience levels welcome.
Enrollment is limited to 10.
Faculty
Lead Instructor Beth Ireland is joined for three of the projects by visiting instructors Mark Gardner and Dixie Biggs.
Beth Ireland has been a professional woodworker since 1983, specializing in turning and sculpture. She holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and her work has been widely exhibited and published, including a 2015 profile in American Woodturner. She has also held several prestigious Windgate fellowships and participated in the International Turning Exchange. Beth’s business encompasses everything from production runs of turned balusters to sculpture to one-of-a-kind stringed instruments. She is the Lead Instructor for our Turning Intensive and teaches turning for the Comprehensive. Beth lives in St. Petersburg, FL, and her website is bethireland.net
Visiting Instructor Dixie Biggs makes her home in Gainesville, FL, and has been a full-time studio woodturner/artist since 1989. Having a degree in agriculture from the University of Florida and a love of gardening, much of her work incorporates botanical themes. She is best known for her meticulously-carved, “leaf wrapped” vessels. She has exhibited her work in such notable venues as the Smithsonian Craft Show, Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, and del Mano Gallery. Her work is in public and private collections worldwide. Dixie teaches at craft schools, symposia, and clubs across the country and has been featured in Woodturning magazine, among other publications. For more on Dixie’s work, visit dixiebiggs.com
Visiting Instructor Mark Gardner is a full-time studio turner and sculptor in Saluda, NC. His award-winning work is exhibited nationally and has been acquired for the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others. He is represented in publications such as New Masters of Woodturning (Fox Chapel Press, 2008) and Scratching the Surface: Art and Content in Contemporary Wood (Guild Publishing, 2002). Mark’s website is markgardnerstudio.com
The Turning Intensive was featured in American Woodturner magazine, December 2013. Click here to read the article.
Tuition: $5,430
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Lead Instructor Beth Ireland
Sakura by Visiting Instructor Dixie Biggs, cherry, pyrography and watercolor pigment, (6″x11″x5.5″), 2014
Bowls by Mark Gardner, maple and cherry (9″-16″dia.), 2012