Dewey Garrett
biography |
portfolio | artists listing
b. 1947, Kansas City, Missouri
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Ray County Museum, Richmond, MO
University of Michigan Museum, Ann Arbor, MI
The White House, Washington, DC
Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA
The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
The Ray County Museum, Richmond, MO
American Association of Woodturners Permanent Collection, St. Paul, MN
SELECTED EXHIBITION
2008 Turned Wood-Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Rose Engines and Kings: Contemporary Ornamental Turning 2008, Woodturning Center,
Philadelphia, PA
2007 7th Contemporary Wood Invitational, American Art Company, Tacoma, WA
Design In Wood, San Diego County Fair, San Diego, CA
One Work, One World, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai, CA
Turning Green, American Association of Woodturners, Hoffman Gallery, Oregon College
of Art and Craft, Portland, OR; AAW Gallery, St. Paul, MN
Not the Same Old Grind, Wharton Esherick Museum, Paoli, PA
28th Annual Box & Container Show, Northwest Fine Woodworking, Seattle, WA
2006 Turned Wood-Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
New Work, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai, CA
California Contours, San Luis Obispo Art Center, CA
La Petite, XIII, Alder Gallery, Coburg, OR
Craft Forms, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
27th Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
2005 Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL & New York, NY
Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Philadelphia, PA
Innovative Perspectives in Woodturning, Woodturning Center, Philadelphia, PA
Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, MA
Selected Works, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Art Beneath the Bark-A Celebration of Woodturning, Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts,
Lake Oswego, OR
Scratching the Surface, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA
Materials Hard and Soft, Greater Denton Arts Council, Denton, TX
Artist Reflections: Selections from the Permanent Collection, The Woodturning Center,
Philadelphia, PA
2004 Nature Transformed, Wood Art from the Bohlen Collection, University of Michigan
Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
Vessels, Davidson Art Gallery, Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, NY
Biola University Art Gallery, La Mirada, CA
Sea to Odyssey, American Association of Woodturners, Caribe Royale, Orlando, FL
American Association of Woodturners Gallery, St. Paul, MN
2004-06 Art in Embassies Programme- U.S department of State, American Embassy,
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
2003-04 25th Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
Put A Lid On It: Containing Human Experience, American Association of Woodturners,
Brand Library Art Galleries, Glendale, CA
2003 Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, New York, NY
Around the Looking Glass, Wharton Esherick Museum, Paoli, PA
2001-03 Challenge VI-Roots: Insights & Inspirations in Contemporary Turned Objects, Berman
Museum of Art, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, touring
Celebrating Boxes, Tullie House Museum, Carlise, England
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, touring
2002 Branching Out: Contemporary Wood Turning in 2002, Ellipse Arts Center, Arlington, VA
ReTurnings, Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA
2001-02 Crafts National, Zoller Gallery, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Nature Takes a Turn, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN, touring
2001 23rd Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
2000-01 The Fine Art of Wood: The Bohlen Collection, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
From the Forest Floor to the Living Room Floor, Organized by the Certified Forest
Products Council and the National Resources Defense Council, San Francisco
International Airport Museum, San Francisco, CA
2000 Horizons 2000, Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, CT
Defining Vessels, Chico Art Center, Chico, CA
Sculpture and Fine Crafts, St. Louis Artists' Guild, St. Louis, MO
Materials: Hard and Soft, Greater Denton Arts Council Center for the Visual Arts,
Denton, TX
22nd Annual Vahki Exhibition, Galleria Mesa, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2007 American Woodturner, Summer
Woodturning, April
Wallace, “An Expansive Aesthetic”, Craft Arts International, No. 69
2006 American Craft, Oct/Nov
2005 Turning Points, The Wood Turning Center, Winter
2004 Nature Transformed, Wood Art from the Bohlen Collection, Hudson Hills
American Woodturner, cover photograph, fall issue
500Wood Bowls, Lark Books
400 Wood Boxes, Lark Books
Woodwork Magazine, photographs
2003 Meilach, Dona, Wood Art Today, Schiffer Publishing
Darlow, Mike, Woodturning Designs, Fox Chapel Publishing
Hosaluk, Michael, Scratching The Surface: Art and Content in Contemporary Wood,
Guild Publishing
2002 Turning Points, The Wood Turning Center, Winter
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Educated in engineering, Dewey Garrett took up the wood lathe in order to develop general woodworking skills for cabinetry and furniture. He found the process so stimulating and challenging that woodturning has become a dedication creative pursuit. He is a self-taught turner and makes and modifies his tools to create unique turnings.
His work is an ongoing exploration of the structure of forms constrained by the symmetry and simplicity of a lathe.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Ornamental turning is an old and specialized branch of turning with a unique and interesting history. Paralleling the development of the plain turning lathe, advanced practitioners developed complex machines to produce highly decorative work. The art form was popular with the aristocracy of Europe and interested George III of England, Louis XVI of France and Peter the Great of Russia.
The intricate devices made for the art include amazing mechanisms with intriguing names like rose engines, geometric and eccentric chucks, swash plates, and goniostats. Machines that are the exemplars of the art were made by the Holtzapffel family in England during the 1800's. Their machines represented the state of the art in engineering and the five volume text published by Charles Holtzapffel is to this day the authority on the subject.
I've been turning wood for about twenty-five years and have long had a copy of the Holtzapffel Volume V that describes many details of ornamental turning. However, I've found the Victorian English and exacting descriptions of the text difficult to absorb. A few years ago, I happened to see a demonstration of a rose engine by the master turner Gorst Duplessis. After seeing a machine in action, it occurred to me that the motions accomplished by the complex arrangement of shafts, gears, cams, followers, and springs could be duplicated by simple motions produced by motor-driven shafts and lead screws that were more familiar to me as an electrical engineer.
I began my search for parts and found a great source in EBAY auctions. By careful shopping, I obtained parts surplussed or salvaged from industrial machines and constructed my simple machine so that with motion in three axes (one rotary and two linear) I could emulate the complex rocking and pumping motions of a rose engine. &nnbsp;For control of the motors, I started with an old laptop computer, the Linux operating system with real-time extensions, and an open-source software project for enhanced machine control (EMC).
I wrote my design software to emulate rose engine motions and was soon able to make the fascinating patterns that are produced by moving the lathe shaft back and forth as it slowly rotates. After some initial success, I renewed my study of the history and patterns produced in the past and realized that I could also produce designs made with other equipment like eccentric chucks and cutting frames. I am now experimenting with new designs that are only possible with a post-industrial approach and the efficacy of computer control.
Currently, I'm making small boxes following the traditions of the field. I turn the basic shapes for the body and the lid by hand on my old manual lathe and transfer the parts back and forth to my emulator machine for decoration. The work is quite demanding in the precision required for the pattern work and in the extreme attention to detail needed for the many steps in the process. In addition to the unlimited possibilities for design, I've found new ways to make mistakes but each completed work adds to the learning process and my design repertoire.
The traditional materials for ornamental turning are ivory and hard, fine-grained woods like boxwood and especially African blackwood. Ivory is no longer a candidate for new work and after years of woodworking, I've developed mild allergies to woods of the Dalbergia genus that includes blackwood. Though I can use the wood with extra care, the problem has motivated me to seek alternatives. In my search, I've found some very useful resins that I can cast to make cylindrical blocks that become the raw material for my boxes. This "faux ivory" material has an appearance similar to ivory and excellent machining properties that are important for the patterns and the fine-pitch screw threads used on boxes.
The old inspires the new.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Ray County Museum, Richmond, MO
University of Michigan Museum, Ann Arbor, MI
The White House, Washington, DC
Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA
The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
The Ray County Museum, Richmond, MO
American Association of Woodturners Permanent Collection, St. Paul, MN
SELECTED EXHIBITION
2008 Turned Wood-Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Rose Engines and Kings: Contemporary Ornamental Turning 2008, Woodturning Center,
Philadelphia, PA
2007 7th Contemporary Wood Invitational, American Art Company, Tacoma, WA
Design In Wood, San Diego County Fair, San Diego, CA
One Work, One World, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai, CA
Turning Green, American Association of Woodturners, Hoffman Gallery, Oregon College
of Art and Craft, Portland, OR; AAW Gallery, St. Paul, MN
Not the Same Old Grind, Wharton Esherick Museum, Paoli, PA
28th Annual Box & Container Show, Northwest Fine Woodworking, Seattle, WA
2006 Turned Wood-Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
New Work, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai, CA
California Contours, San Luis Obispo Art Center, CA
La Petite, XIII, Alder Gallery, Coburg, OR
Craft Forms, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
27th Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
2005 Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL & New York, NY
Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Philadelphia, PA
Innovative Perspectives in Woodturning, Woodturning Center, Philadelphia, PA
Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, MA
Selected Works, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Art Beneath the Bark-A Celebration of Woodturning, Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts,
Lake Oswego, OR
Scratching the Surface, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA
Materials Hard and Soft, Greater Denton Arts Council, Denton, TX
Artist Reflections: Selections from the Permanent Collection, The Woodturning Center,
Philadelphia, PA
2004 Nature Transformed, Wood Art from the Bohlen Collection, University of Michigan
Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
Vessels, Davidson Art Gallery, Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, NY
Biola University Art Gallery, La Mirada, CA
Sea to Odyssey, American Association of Woodturners, Caribe Royale, Orlando, FL
American Association of Woodturners Gallery, St. Paul, MN
2004-06 Art in Embassies Programme- U.S department of State, American Embassy,
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
2003-04 25th Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
Put A Lid On It: Containing Human Experience, American Association of Woodturners,
Brand Library Art Galleries, Glendale, CA
2003 Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, New York, NY
Around the Looking Glass, Wharton Esherick Museum, Paoli, PA
2001-03 Challenge VI-Roots: Insights & Inspirations in Contemporary Turned Objects, Berman
Museum of Art, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, touring
Celebrating Boxes, Tullie House Museum, Carlise, England
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, touring
2002 Branching Out: Contemporary Wood Turning in 2002, Ellipse Arts Center, Arlington, VA
ReTurnings, Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA
2001-02 Crafts National, Zoller Gallery, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Nature Takes a Turn, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN, touring
2001 23rd Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
2000-01 The Fine Art of Wood: The Bohlen Collection, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
From the Forest Floor to the Living Room Floor, Organized by the Certified Forest
Products Council and the National Resources Defense Council, San Francisco
International Airport Museum, San Francisco, CA
2000 Horizons 2000, Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, CT
Defining Vessels, Chico Art Center, Chico, CA
Sculpture and Fine Crafts, St. Louis Artists' Guild, St. Louis, MO
Materials: Hard and Soft, Greater Denton Arts Council Center for the Visual Arts,
Denton, TX
22nd Annual Vahki Exhibition, Galleria Mesa, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2007 American Woodturner, Summer
Woodturning, April
Wallace, “An Expansive Aesthetic”, Craft Arts International, No. 69
2006 American Craft, Oct/Nov
2005 Turning Points, The Wood Turning Center, Winter
2004 Nature Transformed, Wood Art from the Bohlen Collection, Hudson Hills
American Woodturner, cover photograph, fall issue
500Wood Bowls, Lark Books
400 Wood Boxes, Lark Books
Woodwork Magazine, photographs
2003 Meilach, Dona, Wood Art Today, Schiffer Publishing
Darlow, Mike, Woodturning Designs, Fox Chapel Publishing
Hosaluk, Michael, Scratching The Surface: Art and Content in Contemporary Wood,
Guild Publishing
2002 Turning Points, The Wood Turning Center, Winter
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Educated in engineering, Dewey Garrett took up the wood lathe in order to develop general woodworking skills for cabinetry and furniture. He found the process so stimulating and challenging that woodturning has become a dedication creative pursuit. He is a self-taught turner and makes and modifies his tools to create unique turnings.
His work is an ongoing exploration of the structure of forms constrained by the symmetry and simplicity of a lathe.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Ornamental turning is an old and specialized branch of turning with a unique and interesting history. Paralleling the development of the plain turning lathe, advanced practitioners developed complex machines to produce highly decorative work. The art form was popular with the aristocracy of Europe and interested George III of England, Louis XVI of France and Peter the Great of Russia.
The intricate devices made for the art include amazing mechanisms with intriguing names like rose engines, geometric and eccentric chucks, swash plates, and goniostats. Machines that are the exemplars of the art were made by the Holtzapffel family in England during the 1800's. Their machines represented the state of the art in engineering and the five volume text published by Charles Holtzapffel is to this day the authority on the subject.
I've been turning wood for about twenty-five years and have long had a copy of the Holtzapffel Volume V that describes many details of ornamental turning. However, I've found the Victorian English and exacting descriptions of the text difficult to absorb. A few years ago, I happened to see a demonstration of a rose engine by the master turner Gorst Duplessis. After seeing a machine in action, it occurred to me that the motions accomplished by the complex arrangement of shafts, gears, cams, followers, and springs could be duplicated by simple motions produced by motor-driven shafts and lead screws that were more familiar to me as an electrical engineer.
I began my search for parts and found a great source in EBAY auctions. By careful shopping, I obtained parts surplussed or salvaged from industrial machines and constructed my simple machine so that with motion in three axes (one rotary and two linear) I could emulate the complex rocking and pumping motions of a rose engine. &nnbsp;For control of the motors, I started with an old laptop computer, the Linux operating system with real-time extensions, and an open-source software project for enhanced machine control (EMC).
I wrote my design software to emulate rose engine motions and was soon able to make the fascinating patterns that are produced by moving the lathe shaft back and forth as it slowly rotates. After some initial success, I renewed my study of the history and patterns produced in the past and realized that I could also produce designs made with other equipment like eccentric chucks and cutting frames. I am now experimenting with new designs that are only possible with a post-industrial approach and the efficacy of computer control.
Currently, I'm making small boxes following the traditions of the field. I turn the basic shapes for the body and the lid by hand on my old manual lathe and transfer the parts back and forth to my emulator machine for decoration. The work is quite demanding in the precision required for the pattern work and in the extreme attention to detail needed for the many steps in the process. In addition to the unlimited possibilities for design, I've found new ways to make mistakes but each completed work adds to the learning process and my design repertoire.
The traditional materials for ornamental turning are ivory and hard, fine-grained woods like boxwood and especially African blackwood. Ivory is no longer a candidate for new work and after years of woodworking, I've developed mild allergies to woods of the Dalbergia genus that includes blackwood. Though I can use the wood with extra care, the problem has motivated me to seek alternatives. In my search, I've found some very useful resins that I can cast to make cylindrical blocks that become the raw material for my boxes. This "faux ivory" material has an appearance similar to ivory and excellent machining properties that are important for the patterns and the fine-pitch screw threads used on boxes.
The old inspires the new.