The size and quality of the logs I acquire are much more important to me than the species. Domestic hardwoods, maple, sweetgum, ash, oaks, hickory are all nice, and I’m excited to learn the different species in an intuitive sense. Turning an oak bowl,is different than ash, for instance. Knowing what’s going to want to move while turning, which handles sheer scraping better, which should be thinner and which thicker, what are the problems/challenges and what are plans to mitigate. It’s like raising multiple children; your general approach might be similar, but you treat each differently because they are different, and they are all great.
I make all of my bowls and platters facing out from the tree (pith below the foot). I find this a more pleasing orientation, as it shows the ‘picture’ of the log, the patterns and why they are there. The other, more common orientation may show patterns, but they don’t seem to relate to anything; swirls, swoops, lines, and half circles. While the patterns might be pleasing, they don’t easily relate to, or describe the tree. I think of this as ‘lumber orientation’. In a situation with heartwood and sapwood, ‘face in’, features the sapwood with a bit of heartwood at the ends (who knew a bowl has ends?), where the ’face out’ bowl features the heartwood with some sapwood at the outside. Interesting enough, for the ‘face out’ bowl, the center of the tree is near the center of the bowl, and the outside of the tree is very near the outside of the bowl, which makes sense to me. It takes me just a few seconds to show a customer how the bowl fits into the tree, which makes the bowl more desirable, more friendly.
Consider a photo, a flower blossom, a beautiful face, things we universally find beautiful. Cut it in quarters and reverse the order, turn the photo inside out. Now you have the patterns, lines, swoops and half circles that some people will find fun, but lost is the universal beauty.
I noticed the differences quite naturally in my work, and have pondered the why. Potential buyers likely won’t be able to verbalize the difference but seem to prefer the warmth and quiet charm from a bowl facing out. Maybe there’s a simple psychological explaination. Face the world or turn away? Face to the sun, or, back to the sun? See the beauty of a tree, or see nice lumber.
Facing out always has cost. In this case there is a 1/3 hit in the size of a bowl one can make with a given log. Your gonna need bigger logs.
