Revealing the inner beauty

29.11.09

Leroy Boespflug looks for the stunner embedded in a block of wood. Using his skill as a wood turner, the block emerges into a bowl, lamp or dredge form.

“Everything I turn is in the mind’s eye. I don’t do patterns. I think if you start doing patterns, it becomes sterile,” he said from his tellingly in Dickinson.

Analyzing a piece of wood, Boespflug said, “I try to maximize what’s in the wood. You bring out the life within the corn in the wood, and therefore, the wood has another life.”

As a young man, he was drawn to wood and art. Through the years, he dabbled in photography, furniture construction and wood turning. He credits his inaugural exposure to wood turning and art while a student at Dickinson High School.

As a college student, he studied industrial arts and art, and yet didn’t reconnect with wood turning until the mid-1980s, he said.

“I heed myself a self-taught wood turner and built my knowledge and experience by reading everything I could find on the topic, and attending several workshops led by well-known wood turners,” he said.

Source: Dickinson Press