LARRY STEVENSON, "Small Treasures," Feb 16 - Mar 25, 2006, TU Gallery, Edmonton

by

LARRY STEVENSON, Small Treasures

TU Gallery, Edmonton

Feb 16 - Mar 25, 2006

By Gilbert A. Bouchard

Happy accidents played a major role in the development of Larry Stevenson’s career as a woodturner. For example, Stevenson initially took up woodturning as a hobby back in the mid 70s because he had time on his hands and wanted to build himself a bedroom set. “I started turning wood just at the time it was becoming an artform.” Rapidly tiring of working only with the small, rectangular chunks of kiln-dried wood commercially available for woodturning, the woodworker decided to experiment with chunks of firewood he had hanging around his house. “Green wood had more resistance, a totally different feel on the lathe,” says the self-taught artist. “Then I found a piece of spalted poplar (wood run through by black lines caused by bacterial infection) that ended up being totally beautiful when it was turned. I was hooked. With a lot of my pieces, I’m striving to make the wood look like glass. I want people to look and think for a second that it doesn’t belong to the medium,” he says.

Represented by: Crafthouse Gallery, Vancouver; Oh Brothers Gallery, Vancouver; TU Gallery, Edmonton.