Intersections: Wood Gallery & Studio
299 10th Street E. N4K 1S4 Owen Sound, ON, Canada

The Pizza Peel was made from a city tree in Owen Sound. The tree had to come down and the owner generously offered it to Intersections. The wood is quite beautiful with the blade made from the hard-wood the centre of the tree and the handle from the sap-wood where growth takes place. The Pizza Peel became a 2020 Christmas gift. The gifts remind me of a favorit book by Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property.

Early December I gave a zoom talk to a group in Toronto and a few people from England. It was on the past 50 years of my work titled Turning Towards: Intersections. A challenge to pair it down to just forty slides! There was also a brief demonstration of a plate cut and reassembled from an early work from 1972 titled Spoken For. It shows how a simple cut of the form may generate a new subject. This was fundamental for the woodturners to move beyond technique to discover a subject supported by turning. It moved from what is a good form to what constitutes a good idea.

When I lived at Lake Charles there was a woodland and we counted 37 different species of trees. My neighbours across the lake Reg and Pam, sustainably cut trees from the woodland for over a decade. It was informative and fun to discuss best practice and see the ecology improve. Then they moved out west, closer to family. Reg left some boards with me and I was to repay with something. Soon after I left Lake Charles I was making the Library reception desk for the North Grey Union Public Library. It had 34 different regional species and of course being a library it was put together alphabetically in the counter top. So Reg and Pam received a "cutting" board with 32 species some of which came from Lake Charles. Here you can see the board hanging in their new home.

Hello Members and Friends of Intersections To celebrate Intersections entering its 5th year on November 1st is not quite so easy as previous years. The first few years we had the gallery and studio workshop chock full of people with great catering by Chef Zach Keeshig. This year it is a quieter affair with a tour from Intersections to four other studio workshops on November 7th. It’s a way to celebrate woodworking in our region. The small studio workshop will become essent...ial to the region as climate change develops. The relationship of the tree to making of useful and beautiful objects is fundamental. So how do makers set things up? For this tour all four spaces are studio workshops where makers live and work. It will celebrate some of the finest woodworkers in Grey County and see where they create their individual works. Joe Watson, Jeff Elie, Ron Ball and Pierre Rousseau each bring a particular insight and character to the art of woodworking. Three of them have been instructors for Intersections. The different workspaces for various woodworking disciplines represent just a few ways of working wood for aspiring and professional woodworkers. How the studio workshop is set up will make a difference for efficiencies, pleasures of working, safety and so much more. How to set up in a garage and what you need to know for a custom- built studio workshop. The tour at this point is fully booked however In the future Intersections is considering other ways to present the creative space of woodworking possibly through slide talks, zoom talks and actual tours. That is, if it is popular and useful to other professional and aspiring woodworkers it will be run again. Thankyou to all the members and friends of Intersections for the generous support over the last four years. There will I hope be much to celebrate in our 5th year. For those of you who have just about had it for the old router table at Intersections we just bought a new one, state of the art. A new cabinet makers bench will be added soon. Different disciplines need different work surfaces. It sure helps to know the correct tool and successful environments for the project at hand. Mind you, we also cover how to manage with what you have! Join us in our 5th year at Intersections where excellence meets quality.

Hello Members and Friends of Intersections You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending. C.S. Lewis In a recent exchange with Carolyn Hirtle, who was an artist in Residence at Intersections, I discovered that her time with us helped redirect her career path towards the discipline of art therapy. In an email Carolyn observed, I am quite set on including woodworking in my practice of art therapy. Personally I have found ha...Continue reading