Helga Winter: Wood Turn Vessels

November at Artisans on Taylor we will feature Wood Turned Vessels by Helga Winter.
Opening Reception with the artist Saturday, November 3rd, 5:30

Artisans on Taylor is proud to present wood turned vessels by Helga Winter. Born and raised in Germany, Winter has been a wood turner since 1982. She studied under Rude Osolnik, David Ellsworth, Liam O’Neil and Paul Pitts. Her work has been exhibited in group shows in Europe and the United States. Winter received her M.S. in Education from Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development. She has demonstrated wood turning in Austria, taught studio classes since 1987 and was an instructor at the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building in Port Townsend, Washington from 1992 through 1995. She also helped found the Tennessee Association of Woodturners.
She hand turns unseasoned or “green” Pacific Madrone (arbutus menziesii) on a wood lathe. The drying of green Madrone is an organic process of change, for the artist it refers “to a sense of mystery, balance, the fragility of life and a sense of movement.”
Looking at the center of things is the underlying theme in Winter’s work as an artist and educator. “The process of my work is a self-discovery. The pieces are felt and become known to me only to be discovered anew through the beholder’s imagination” upon whom it rests to investigate and decide the function of the piece.
Winter embellishes her turned vessels with dyes and drawn patterns as well as paper to invite a closer look and investigation. The vessel, “when given a new appearance or ‘look’ through dying or patterning its surface, allows a quiet conversation to take place. Who am I really? How does my appearance, my attitude affect my inner being? Do they enhance the Self or cover it up?”
Through these processes Winter strives to show the pureness of the wood. Her work is a metaphor for the essence of Being.