Pear vessel

I am a retired Police Sergeant from Miami, Florida, moving to the mountains of North Carolina in 2009. I have been a woodturner since 1998, currently specializing in highly carved, textured, and colored wood vessels sculpted from local trees. When first observed by many people, my pieces often appear to be ceramic or glass, and it gives me great satisfaction to explain that everything I make is wood. Initially, I was attracted to the beauty of the wood itself, and for many years I made bowls and vessels that celebrated the color, grain, and feel of the natural material.  I now treat the wood, after it comes from the lathe or chainsaw, as a blank, three-dimensional canvas. The majority of my pieces are hollow vessels, turned from plain wood with little or no figure, which I like for the large surface areas for embellishment. After completing a finished form, the real work begins! My process begins with pencil or chalk sketches on paper or on the vessel, often erasing and starting over multiple times until I commit to actually removing material. I use both electric and pneumatic powered tools, often followed by pyrography for unique textures. I prefer organic textures that are at least loosely based on those found in nature. The last step in this process is multiple layers of carefully applied acrylic paints, dyes, or stains to bring the contours and textures to life. The end result is, hopefully, a form or vessel that has the warmth and tactile qualities of wood, with the visual punch of a painting. My vessels and sculptures are rarely functional; they are meant to hold only your attention, purely celebrations of color, texture, and form.

- Steve Miller