On pots
Humans have been making pots probably since the very first flickering of civilisation. The need to store liquid and food is universal. In areas where the raw material is available, it is likely people have been carving wooden vessels of some kind for most of that time, but wood does not generally survive that long. One remarkable exception is the Cairns bowl. Clay pots however, are remarkably durable, and there is a rich record of pots made across many ages and many civilisations. What is remarkable is how very similar many of them look, although there could not have been any cultural exchange between the makers. Pots made by native Americans in the US South-West have remarkable similarities with pots made in China millennia earlier and half a world away. There must be something universal, an efficiency of shape that means makers drift towards something similar. I am by no means the first woodturner to take ceramics as inspiration and others have progressed on that path much further than I have, but it still fascinates me. Have a look at some of the results of that experimentation here. I am looking for the fine path between making wood resemble clay in form, colour, and texture, but also remain indisputably wood.
