Trying my hand at this whole writing thing…

A few weeks ago I traveled down to Craftsbury, Vermont to speak with a bowlturner named David Brown… I am going to use this as an idea for my story. The photos I used were found in an article I found about David Brown.

In the small, small town of Craftsbury, Vermont lives a man with his wife up on a hill. You need to take what seemed like endless dirt roads to get to his house but once there you are greeted with a big handshake and conversation.

David Brown has been turning bowls in his basement workshop for close to 40 years. “I’m about 90% self taught” he beams proudly as he says this. The wooden pellet stove in the basement provides enough heat to make it comfortable while he works.

Working is what he does. He cuts down his own trees (if they’re not on his land, he will gain permission and pay accordingly), chops them up into foot long sections and then decides what pieces would be good enough to work with. If a section of the tree does not make the cut to by worked with, it is simply thrown in the fire wood pile.

Once a piece is chosen… over and over again Dave attaches the wood to a “lathe” (the machine that spins the wood). Ever so delicately carving everything out from the actual inside of the bowl to the finer points such as grooves and a footing for design. “Like a baseball bat” Brown says to me at one point. It is the same process that wooden baseball bats are made with and he seems proud of that fact… He has tried his hand at batmaking a few times.

One thing this man stand by time and time again is that if you buy one of his bowls, plates, platters. He wants you to use them… he does not want his work to sit around in a house and not be used. He makes these beautiful objects with the idea that they will be practical in everyday use. He wants you to eat your morning cereal out of the wooden bowls he creatd by hand. “I think food taste better out of wood anyway” he says.

In preparation for an upcoming camping trip in Western Canada, Dave steamed and bent wood to be used to make his own snowhoes. Wood from trees he was able to cut down in his own backyard. As he puts it “it’s almost 100% profitablity” with very low capital put into his work.

“Until I drop” is what Dave says when asked how long he intends to continue turning bowls.