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Greetings! I’m really glad that you’ve discovered my website and hope that you find my work interesting, intriguing, and irresistible; with a shameless emphasis on the irresistible. I’ve lived right here in Maine all my life. I’m blessed to have a loving wife (going on thirty-two years now), along with two children, and three grandchildren.
When I was seven years old I saw the movie Pinocchio and fell in love with that little puppet made of wood. Little did I know that my woodworking career had just been born. When I was ten, I began selling seeds from a catalog door-to-door and eventually earned enough to buy a small jig saw that I used to make puppet friends for Pinocchio. I made another one recently, too.
While most kids my age asked for toys, all I wanted for Christmas were tools. I acquired my first wood lathe during the seventh grade and by the next year I had my own complete shop. When I was ten the owner of the local hardware store promised to hire me when I was old enough, and at fifteen he did just that. I worked in the store all through high school; and the lessons I learned there about tools, woodworking, hardware, and life in general still guide and inspire me today.
After high school I went on to Northern Maine Technical Institute and graduated as an architectural draftsman. For a short while I worked in that capacity but soon realized that the job was not challenging enough. So I started a construction business building custom cabinetry and new homes. For many years I turned architectural columns and spindles for my projects.
Then during the slow construction climate in the winter of 1993 I began to fully explore the intricacies of the turned wood bowl. I worked hard that winter making bowls and did my first show that spring. It was such a success that I’ve done nothing else since that magical year.
The bowls you see on this site are all of my own design and they’ve gone through an evolutionary journey to get to where they are today. I remember looking at an artist’s work a long, long time ago and wondering how he arrived at it. I know now that it took years of learning his craft to make that work original and special. It doesn’t take nearly as much talent to copy an original as it does to create it in the first place.
I’m the founding president of the Maine Woodturners (a local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners) and have remained very active in the group since its inception back in 1990. On occasion, I give private woodturning lessons right here in my shop. And one very satisfying thought is that many of those who I have instructed have gone on to become professional turners themselves.
I have been a featured demonstrator at numerous symposiums presented by the American Association of Woodturners; taught at the John Campbell Folk School in Tennessee, and various woodturning clubs from Maine to California. I was featured on three episodes of In the Workshop aired by HGTV in Canada; and continue to teach and share my craft whenever the opportunity presents itself.
The bowls that I create are made with a strong passion, a keen eye, and a skilled hand. Each one is unique and made to the best of my ability. If you end up with one of my bowls I sincerely hope it brings you as much satisfaction in using it as it brought me during its creation.
Thanks for stopping by. David Lancaster
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