make it your own
GaryG in MD
Haven't posted for a while, so I thought I'd throw this out there for some C&C...
This is the first "large" (8") bowl I ever turned, over 13 years ago. Red oak from a neighbor. I had no clue what I was doing with gouges and scrapers -- I learned as I went. I roughed it and set it aside for a few... (years) to dry and oval. Boy, did it oval. But there was still plenty of round left in it thanks to the "10% rule". So I turned the final form. Not particularly attractive -- full of worm holes of various sizes. Now what? Augmentation! Yeah, that's it. So I bleached it. Then I had an ugly, bleached red oak bowl full of wormholes. Showed it to David Ellsworth... he said "burn it". Well, you know... I had already cracked a piece with a torch and didn't want to do that again, so I tried painting the inside white. Didn't work. Set it aside for many more years. Finally couldn't take it laughing at me every time I went by. Decided to paint the inside a nice burgundy color. Now we're getting somewhere... But it still has this big, ugly worm hole! Didn't want to fill it. Didn't want to carve it into some other shape (although I will do that in the future when I get another such 'opportunity'). So I had to make it mine. Think. It suddenly struck me that from a worms-eye view, the outside looked kind of like a cave dwelling in a cliff. How did they get into those caves anyway? Well, a ladder, of course. So I turned a trembleur, chopped it up, glued it together, wrapped the joints, and stuck it in the hole. To continue the story and make it a proper home or kiva, I added a stone fire pit. Voila. It took a lot of years, but this piece is now really mine! C&C requested. ...GG 
