Art Turnings By Paula J Haymond
My work starts with the wood spinning on the lathe. As the roughing out process progresses, the form begins to emerge from the interaction of the wood, images it conveys to me and the skills I have mastered over the last 6 years of turning. I strive to combine form, grain pattern, fantasy and surface treatment to create art which is orginal, pleasing and whimsical as well as functional.
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Paula J. Haymond Artistic Statement
My artistic life has been informed by my experiences:
- Sneaking out of bed to watch the night sky and hoping to catch a glimpse of a shooting star in the mid western sky when I was very young
- Chasing fire flies in the summer, fascinated by their appearing and disappearing lights
- Watching fish swim in the shallow waters and wondering if they were looking at me as much as I was looking at them
- Playing the flute at state competitions and wondering how I could remember the notes
- Wanting to know how everything around me worked
- How tiles were cut and laid
- How plaster of Paris dried on the wall without sliding off
- How mirrors always seemed to get things backwards and changed what I thought I perceived
- How thoughts and images could be transformed into words and images and forms that would impact how others seemingly viewed the same objects
- And always drawn to trees, the structure of leaves, the changing of season’s impact on leaves and the inexhaustible forms which emerged from their process of life.
I have always been taken by those parts of our human experience we cannot name or touch or feel. The emergence of forms from my work with the wood on the lathe embodies my human experience of silence from within myself and from within the wood. I love working with Norfolk Pine as it initially appears pale and without remarkable grain features beyond its concentric rings of branches growing at right angles to the trunk of tree. As I work with the wood, I begin to see faint black lines of spalting which will only become more dramatic as the wood goes through the process of being repeatedly dipped in an oil based mixture of resins. Sometimes I become so excited about the possibilities of the wood that I cannot wait to see it transformed so that the lines and colors become a more integral part of the turned and carved creation.
When I was introduced to the lathe in 2004, I sensed an opportunity for self expression which was not found in building functional objects from boards and nails. My relationship with the lathe and the wood merged into a partnership and process of my unconscious images being transformed into three dimensional form. I find that when the wood is on the lathe, and I am working at coaxing form from it, I have a sense of stillness inside me, just listening to the process of turning. Often a sense of wonder comes over me and I am filled with excitement as the log becomes transformed into something of imagination and beauty. The wood takes on form and that form seems like a harmonizing of images from within my unconscious and the possibilities offered by the wood. Carving, piercing, and dying the wood is an extension of those images taking on clarity.
Often when I sit the piece down and begin evaluating my contribution to the wood, it’s hard to believe that the collaboration has come from my inner thoughts. It seems more likely that the piece has created itself and I have just come along for the enjoyment of the ride.
I spend time feeding my imagination through the exploring reference materials. Books with many images of ancient and modern painting, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, wood, furniture, eastern treasures, human symbols as well as patterns and designs are always within arm’s reach. I derive creative inspiration from all sorts of crafts and artistic mediums to incorporate those ideas and images into my own expression of art. "
