Interesting thing happened to me today. I was sleeping this morning after having worked on this new piece yesterday afternoon I thought…hmmm I’ll call it “Mother Earth” I have been thinking lately; “Why are we debating whether the Earth is changing or not?” Why are we debating the “Global Warming” trend?

Why not quit the debate and start acting like beings that live on this earth. We are all on this earth and not only should we treat each other with love, kindness, respect and love, but treat our Earth with kindness, respect and love.

Seems like such a simple thing doesn’t it? I mean it really does seem simple to me, so whats the problem? Why yare we at war? Over religion? Over Politics? Over freakin’ oil? If it’s oil or any of these things for goodness sake lets put down our axes to grind and be loving! Yea, it’s that easy.

Yea, this is a bit of a rant. I wish it didn’t feel like it had to come to this, but with declaration of war we perpetuate more war. With declaration of hate we perpetuate more hate. The same holds true for love. Find someone to love, something to love. Take five minutes out of your busy money hungry, kids to school, work to do, success to attain day to stop and take notice. Notice the flowers, notice the people. Become aware of the beauty around you instead of always seeing the negative, or striving for the next best thing!!

I have been following the Oprah / Eckhart Tolle 10 week Podcast and class every evening for the past three weeks. I will admit that it has opened my eyes even further to the truth of becoming an awakened society, but this is something I have studied and lived for many years.

This piece of art that I have created is just a small piece that I am giving back to society and is just a small reminder to treat each other, and mother earth with the respect, care and love they deserve. Folks we all come from the same stuff. Nothing seperates, and once we all become aware to the fact that everything from our daily thoughts, to our daily actions effect everyuthing around us — We will be a much happier, safer, war free Earth.

I didn’t know today was an “Earth Hour” event before starting this piece. This evening between 8-9PM we are all to turn off all non-essential appliances and lighting. The piece is not meant to be a thematic thing that we all think about once a year as an event. We all need to be aware of the consequences of our every day actions and I hope that even if just a few of us become more “aware” that we will truly effect the earth and it’s inhabitants of now to effect those coming after us.

The Bowl is made from Mallee Burl found in Austrailia.

The Piece is about 8″ Across and 3.5″ Deep

Bowl is Sanded to 1800 Grit, and polished.

Acquire this piece for $85.00

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The wait is over. The art piece is complete, and let the bidding begin! As most of you know that have been reading my blog for some time now. I have been working with Dave Fleet on his Cancer Research fundraiser. Dave is running the Boston marathon and raising money for The Princess Margret Hospital Foundation.

The wait is now over and the piece that I have blogged about during the process (1 & 2), is done at last.

Pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them

The Ornament itself is approximately 9 inches in height, and the sphere is about 2.25 inches across. The sphere is made from a type of Australian Burl. The wavy structure of the burl is a challenge to work with, but is well worth the effort for it’s beauty.

The Top & Bottom Finials are made of Rock maple, and although they are very delicate and intricate, the tight grain of the Maple keeps these strong.

Finally the Base, the upright spindle, and the smaller cross spindle are all made from American Black Walnut. These pieces are turned one by one on the lathe, and made to fit snugly into one another.

The Auction will be held on March 25th through the 27th. The code is being written by our good friend Tommy Vallier and we will announce the place of auction very soon. If you would like to be informed about where the auction will be held ahead of time email mailto:keith@magicwoodworks.com, and I will send you the info the day before the auction or as soon as the information comes available.

Folks, Dave and I are doing this as our part of a much bigger picture. Please support us in our effort to raise $3,000 for cancer research by the time Dave hits that tape as he crosses the finish line at the Boston Marathon.

Thank you

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This past year I spent a lot of time with my iPod while I was working at my day job or working at the lathe. I have to say that many hours of amazing listening were done while listening to JC Hutchins Podio Book “The 7th Son Trilogy“. I was a latecomer to the party as I started listening when JC was just beginning to put out book 3 of a three part series.

JC Hutchins is one of the best guys I know and one of the most giving souls out there, not to mention a kick ass writer. JC put in what I would assume is not only hundreds of hours in writing the book, but also many hundreds of hours creating the 7th son experience podcast that many of us have come to love.

My idea was to create an art inspired piece that would represent the 7th son experience in the way that I would see it come off the lathe. However, I felt that I needed to pick either a certain scene, or a certain area of the book that I wanted to try and represent. Let me tell you that was not easy, and I went through a lot of trial and error untill i was happy with my representation of the “Womb” otherwise known as the “Cloning Chamber“. If you havnt listened to 7th son, I wont ruin it for you, because I know after this you’ll be heading to JC’s site to download and become another member in his Beta Clone Army!!

This is a photo documentary of the piece and how I made it in many stages on my lathe. I hope you enjoy.

Photo’s Can be clicked on to see larger view - orMuch better high res photo’s can be found here.

First Set of Pictures shows the beginning stages of the project starting out with a very large chunk of Osage orange being used to turn the base of the piece.

The Osage Orange Piece is being turned and shaped on the outside first and then being hollowed to create the “Womb” effect!

Next the Base needs to have 7 holes drilled in equal spacing around the thick top rim. This will accept posts that will be placed in these holes. The posts are being turned as well.

This is the Chamber Section of the piece. This is what I see as the “Cloning chamber. The piece is made from 2 blocks of Australian Burl along with a piece of blood red Paddauk glued up in between, This creates an amazing transitional illusion.

The Chamber has extremely an extremely sharp top section.

Finally after Glueing in the posts, I strung the Chamber to hang just off center of the base. 7 Posts hang the dangerous chamber section suspended in the middle of the piece.

JC, I hope I did the book justice. I had a lot of fun creating this piece and you really deserve it. If you havn’t downloaded The 7th Son Novel Trilogy…..get your butt over there and join the experience!!

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Today I turned a few add ons to the sphere you saw me turn a couple of days ago. As I stated in the previos post the project would be in multiple steps and I would be taking you on a ride through the process. These photo’s are the process of making decorative finials that will be attached to the sphere after they are turned. I will not show any pictures of the finished product until all of the parts are assembled. I will leave you to your imagination on that.

You can see by these picturtes the process in which I fit a tennon into the ball to accept an area to glue into, then I turn a top finial, and a lower finial. This process is time consuming because the finial becomes very delicate. I only turn about one inch of the lower finial at a time because you can never go back and reshape the finial after it’s been turned.

On a personal note. Dave has inspired me to get my butt in gear and go buy a good pair of running shoes and start getting some of this extra unhealthy weight off. I used to be in top shape, work as a personal trainer, and I even owned my own wellness facility for some time. It’s time to get back into the wellness swing.

Links for this article are as follows:

Dave Fleet - Dave’s Website

Princess Margret Hospital Foundation

Original Post telling you about the charitable cause and dates for the  auction of this piece for Cancer research.

Digg - Listing for this article on Dave’s site

Dave’s Post on the Project

Direct Donations to Dave’s Cancer Research Fund

Look forward to the next update coming on Wednesday when you will see me building the base of the piece.

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Recently, I attended Podcamp Toronto, and I met an awful lot of wonderful people there. One of the people I was able to meet face-to-face was Dave Fleet. Dave is one of those guys that just lifts your energy being around him. Many of you might not know but Dave is running and training for the Boston Marathon coming up in just a short five weeks.

Dave being the stand up Englishman he is has been raising funds for cancer research on his blog as he logs and tracks his runs everyday for the whole to see. The funds he raises go to the

The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation

to fund Cancer research. Oddly enough Dave and I have both been affected very recently by family members passing from this horrible disease.

My thoughts in helping Dave were to design and turn a beautiful art inspired piece that could be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Bidding will take place for approximatly two days and updates of the highest bid will always be posted. The dates for the bidding are as follows:

Begin: Tuesday March 25th at 9AM

Ending: Thursday March 27th at 9PM

(Dave will be in charge of updating a page that is currently being created by our friend Tommy Vallier. This site will auto update after sending your bid to davef@davefleet.com –page location to be announced)

The winner of the piece will be notified just after 9PM March 27th and if he/she wants to be recognized, both Dave and I will link through and recognize that person in a post auction blog post and will as include in any other post auction listings that we are a part of.

So what is the piece that will be auctioned off?? Well, I can tell you it will not be a bowl. It will be a decorative art piece that I will update the process of production on my blog. The piece consists of four major turnings and separate pieces that will be assembled at the end. I began working on the project and here are a few pictures of the process so far.

Thats all folks for today :)…. As you can see a piece was mounted to my lathe and turned into the shape of a squished ball. The piece is turned from a burl section out of an Australian tree. Keep checking in as I will be updating the progress on this multi step piece daily, and of course get ready to bid on Tuesday March 25th, beginning at 9am sharp!

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Tonight I finished up a Japanese inspired sushi set for my friend Eden Spodek of Toronto Canada, and the brains behind the Bargainista blog. Eden will be giving this set to her sister for her birthday so I wanted to make it something special.

This sushi set is pretty special to me not only because I made it for a friend, but because I saw the vision of what I wanted to do in a dream. In my dream I saw a cup with a dark area in the bottom. I am not sure exactly what the dark spot was, but I do know that things were flowing to it, almost as if they were being sucked into the cup.

After this vivid dream reappeared to me during the day I remembered that dark area and all of the things that were flowing to it. I thought, maybe a magnet, maybe this cup, or small bowl could be a sort of touchstone where by the person who acquired this cup would be able to sense prosperity by either thinking about it, touching it, or by acknowledging it’s presence.

I don’t want to get too new age here, but I am just being honest about what I saw and how I interpreted it. The set is turned from black walnut and includes two classic sushi dishes, and the “prosperity cup”. The prosperity cup is pierced at the bottom and has a small round magnet inlaid into the bottom of the cup. Also included in the set are two sets of hand painted lacquered bamboo chopsticks.

I hope Eden’s sister Michelle enjoys these pieces. I know I enjoyed turning them and I know that Eden is sending her love through them.

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Last night I had a new experience as a woodturner. I was interviewed by John Meadows for his “On the Log” audio Podcast. John is a Canadian Podcaster that I met online via twitter a few months back and had the pleasure to meet in person at Podcamp Toronto.

Last night, we had a conversation about the convergence of an old world craft (woodturning) meeting up with new world technologies.

John and I discussed everything from the artistic process to megabytes and was as always exquisitely produced. John is the master of audio production and the guru to many.

Please feel free to listen to this episode of “On the Log” and make sure that you leave John comments. If you are not a subscriber already to Johns show, he brings great content week in and week out, and remember to keep on turning.

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It’s about 1:30 EST on Sunday, March 2nd. I just finished listening to “Six Pixels of Seperation” with Mitch Joel from Twist Image. I encourage anyone who is not currently listening to Mitch’s podcast to get there collective buts over there and subscribe, you wont be sorry.

Anyway, I have been listening to Mitch for a good year or so, and today he said some things on his “plane cast” that really struck a nerve with me.

Mitch, ties his podcasts together with what he calls his six point’s and I will tell you what they were today directly from Mitch’s blog. To get the full meaning and context please download and listen to this episode where he also chats with “Seth Godin” …yea, thee Seth Godin.

Todays Six Points were on how to make a difference in the world:

1. Tutor

2. Conversations

3. Democracy

4. Status Quo

5. Read

6. Time Vs. Money

I am not going to describe all of these six points, but as long as Mitch doesn’t mind I would like to add a seventh point that sort of wraps all of these together in a real nice package…for me anyway.

Point 7 would be “Intentions” Mitch discusses how to utilize the topics or the actions above with his six steps in how we can change the world. I would like to add “intentions” to the mix because I find that sometimes it is hard to “define” what it is we are going to do to make that difference. I find that “intending” to make that difference is almost as powerful as planning a specific “task or to-do”. The reason I am saying this is because every time we act in a positive way, we change the world around us. Every time we make a decision based on love, we change the world around us.

Yesterday, I helped a friend who is a fellow artist get through a rough patch in her life. I did not plan the chat with her until two in the morning, but my life’s intentions are to make a difference in the world.

Yea, I might be a carpenter, and a woodturner, but I know that I am pretty damn smart. I also know that I have a lot to offer that is not specific to my “Niche” If you are a woodturner and you are reading this saying, he’s not really telling me how to create a bead in a spindle then your probably not the right reader for me. Maybe you are, but maybe this stuff is not what your looking for right now…who knows.

Fact is, I was inspired by my friend Mitch today and I came right to the computer to write about my feelings. How does this relate to woodturning. That I have figured out. You need to figure that out for yourself. My motto is never be afraid to give back, for all the riches you need are at your fingertips.

“Intend” to help….”Intend” to give back …”Intend” to make a positive impact and you will!

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