David Earle, Woodturner

David has been a full time woodturner for 17 years. He has created thousands of unique salad bowls, tea boxes, and tens of thousands of spinning tops.

How did you get into woodturning?

During my time in art school I experimented with quite a few things; Ceramics, metal, rubber, plaster, fabric, fibers, and such. It's hard to beat wood. The stuff is warm to the touch, very strong, beautiful, and each piece is completely unique.

One winter a heavy storm took down some massive trees around the campus. I used the green oak and maple to carve spoons, spatulas, some small bowls, and a rolling pin.

After returning to the Seattle area from Philadelphia my Dad offered a garden shed for a work space. I bought an old wood lathe and found it was a perfect way to create useful things from downed trees.

Several months later I quit my job as a landscaper and became a full time woodturner.

I've demonstrated at the two largest woodturning Syposiums in the US: The Utah Symposium and the AAW National Symposium. I've taught turning to private clients and in our local high school. I've sold for many years at the most prestigious craft show in the USA - The Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show - as well as my local Vashon Island Farmer's Market and many other craft shows around the country.

I'm grateful to everyone who has supported my work. It brings me so much joy to happen upon the things I have made in the homes of friends and neighbors - years after I'd forgotten I'd made them. I am also indebted to those few who share this struggle. I could not have done it with out the camaraderie of my fellow craftspeople.

Why did you choose to focus on spinning tops?

I'm a kid at heart. Making toys comes naturally to me. My grandfather would make my sister and I wooden toys as kids. One thing he made that had a massive impact on me was a set of blocks where each one was a different species of hardwood. He was an engineer so they were all perfectly square and were labled with the species in his draftsman's writing.

I think I played with those more than anything as a young person.

It's funny that I rarely saw spinning tops as a kid. They are one of the oldest known toys. Plastics have largely overtaken wood and metal as the material of choice in toy manufacturing. While plastic has it's merits, (legos, for instance) and is cheap to produce - it is generally not half as charming as something made from a tree.

Wood is a material that was once living. It is warm to the touch and each piece has a story recorded in it's annular rings: knots, nails, wavy grain, bits of barbed wire fence, bug holes, spalting zone lines*, and so on.

I love making and sellings tops because they are affordable - and appeal to so many people. Kids love them and it's super fun to set up my lathe at events so they can color their own.

They teach physics and are impressive to see spinning upside down. It's rare to find a well made top these days and it's always enjoyable to show people something novel.

Decorating them is an endless exercise in color studies. It's amazing that I can make so many thousands of tops and occasionally still suprise myself with a fantastic new color scheme.

*Spalted wood: Wood that has had discoloration as a result of fungi. In the early stages this can be quite beautiful - taking on different colors or creating zone lines that can resemble a map. When the spalting continues beyond this initial phase the wood will break down enough that it is no longer sound or possible to make a functional piece from it.