Last week I decided that I was going to take my best friend, a four legged Dalmatian named Saber for a walk. The Buffalo News Headlines have been saying that we would be seeing serious temperature drops and possibly freezing rain for the next couple of days so I wanted to get out before the weather hit. So far, we havn’t really seen any freezing rain but the temperature is definitely dropping.

Along our walk we frequently pass by my friend Jim’s house who is often outside and gives saber a treat every time we pass. Well, during this walk Jim not only gave Saber a biscuit but also said he had something for me as well. Jim’s wife travels a lot for work and recently came back from the Tropics. The exact place illudes me, but she was able to bring home a gift for me. The gift was a beautiful block of Tropical Cocobolo. A man she had met there told her that this wood was prized by woodworkers and woodturners alike for it’s beautiful deep grain that shows of dark browns, black, deep orange and reds. I told the couple that I have had the pleasure to work wth cocobolo in the past and that I would turn them a beautiful bowl.

Jim, who I speak to frequently knew about the fundraiser that I was doing for the SPCA and told me to please use the piece of wood to create something that I could sell for my SPCA fundraiser. I thaked both Jim and his wife Cathy and Saber and I both moseyed along carrying gifts.

If you are not farmilliar with my SPCA fundraiser. I would lie to take a moment to tell you about it.

Approximately a week ago, I mentioned in a blog post that from that point until the first of January that I would be giving 10% of the proceeds on all the woodturned items I sell to the SPCA. this is my way to give back during the holidays. My dog Saber brings me joy everyday when I get home from work and often hangs out with me in the shop at home. I am hoping to have an interview with the Director of my Local SPCA at some point this week. Just after the new year I will be taking a check to the SPCA for ten percent of my total earnings during the holiday season.

Unfortunatly, I have not sold any pieces as of yet and I would love this new Cocobolo Bowl to be the first in what hopefully works out to a great holiday season for the animals. I am selling this bowl exclusively here on my blog and the first person to hit the Buy Now button will be taken to Paypal where a secure transaction will take place. The bowl stands three inches high by four and a half inches across the top opening. This is not a huge bowl, but it lacks nothing in it’s striking grain and beautiful lines.

Front View

Top View

Bottom View

The cocobolo bowl is $75.00 The Bowl is now $55.00!!! This is an amazing Deal! I really want to get this Fund Drive Going!

Keith Burtis

Popularity: 15% [?]

I’m back, and my two art shows have finished up, but I have also continued to turn wood all week and have listed some items a my Etsy Storefront. I am really glad to be back online and listing items once again! Thank you for your patience and many, many more items will be getting listed for the holiday season. I am taking custom orders. Please email me with any items you are looking for.

Todays Newly Listed items are:

The Bocote Nut Bowl - Beautiful striking Grain. Turned on my lathe, and great for any nuts or hard candies you would lie to display over the fall season and into the holidays.

Quilted Tamboti Bowl - This bowl has an amazing cross grain that allows the grain to shimmer.

A Spalted Tamarind Bowl

Collectors Series Rolling Pin #3 - This rolling pin is made from Cherry and mahogany. Comes with a Numbered Certificate of Authenticity

There are five or six other beautiful items that I’ve listed at my Etsy Storefront. Please feel free to check them out. I would love any feedback you have to offer. Also, I would like to announce that from this point October 18th all the way through new years I will be doing a Holiday drive for Pets. A full ten percent of all the items that I sell in this time period will go to help support the Erie County SPCA in the area I live. On the first week of January I will present to the SPCA a check for 10% of all of my earnings during this time period. Just a small way for me to give back! I have a great Dalmatian named Saber that I saved from the SPCA 4 years ago and he has been my best friend ever since.

If you have a website and you make a purchase, I will include your link in my Holiday wrap-up post. Thank you for your time and Interest. Comments Welcome.

Keith Burtis

Popularity: 6% [?]

Hello all, I wanted to share some of what I have been up to lately. I know it hasn’t been long since the last blog post, but for me it feels like it’s been forever! This past month or two have been amazingly busy for me in having two art shows, overtime at work, and hours upon hours at the lathe every night of the week because I never feel like I’ll have enough items for my art shows. My brain says “Just one more item!”, and my body says “Go to bed you dummy!” I usually listen to my brain laying guilt on myself that I haven’t worked hard enough. Well, tonight… I’m packing it in early to share with you the last pieces that came off my lathe. I am proud of them, yet drained of physical and emotional energy. Fact is, I love you guys…the readers of my blog and I appreciate every comment, view, and passer-through. So without further rambling, here is a set I call “Fruitful”

Fruitful is made from a Japanese Yew Root. It is quite rare and very exotic in coloration and the only way I can get it is if I happen to spot someone throwing out a big root ball that they dug out of their front yard. Yep, Japanese Yew is just a common shrub, but has some of the most turnable, gorgeous colorations you will ever find.

So Really, dont adjust the color on your screen. This wood is really this striking in color. Both pieces have what is referred to as a natural edge and the thin bark is left intact at the rim of each vessel.

When this wood is cut it has a distinct sweet smell and between the smell of the fresh shavings as well as the beautiful color I had to call this set Fruitful

If you have any questions about my art, woodturning, or process please leave a comment.

For those of you that asked about my first of two art shows it went really well. If you happened to stop by the booth, thank you so much for stopping. My next show is Next Weekend at Letchworth State Park where the Fall foliage will nearly match the vessels I have here in the photos. Thanks for letting me ramble. Comments Welcome.

Keith Burtis

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Please Leave me feedback! Help me help you, and make our dreams come true!

Love,

Keith Burtis

Trend Air Shield Post

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A quick Video Update of my woodturning and whats up!

Comments welcome! Gets lonely in my shop

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Handcrafted bowls, Sushi Sets, and Wine Bottle Stoppers. Thats been my life for the weekend so far. I’ve spent maybe 10-12 hours hunched over my lathe and I need break! Today, my woodturning is going to serve as Art Post of the Day #6 as well as an update to what I’ve been up to.

Handcrafted Bowls from Figured English Walnut

I’ve taken these bowls right from tree to finished product. I love having this kind of control over the processing of the wood right from the tree. I am able to select the grain direction and blend different grain patterns. You will see here in the Natural Edge Bowl that the grain runs in two different directions causing a quilted look.

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Quilted Natural Edge Bowl

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Scallop Shaped Bowl From English Walnut

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New Style of Sushi Dish Sets

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The new style sushi dished have a stripe of red/orange Paddauk in the center or slightly off center. This Paddauk will change color a bit with age getting deeper and richer in it’s patina. More recently uploaded photos can be seen on my flickr photo album.
Thank you for checking out my work and any comments would be lovely.

Keith Burtis

Popularity: 6% [?]

Learning Interactive web 2.0 tools for artists can be a really Daunting task!

Recently, in the past few months I have been emailing back and forth with a world class woodturner named Terry Scott. Terry is a truly gifted artisan and has years of woodturning experience under his belt. The reason however that he and I started talking was because I was looking for some photos to use on my site, and I had asked him for permission. Terry gladly obliged. Since then I have learned that he and a friend, fellow woodturner Gordon Pembridge were starting a new website to showcase their amazing talent. Terry has since emailed me and even sent me a box of amazing wood from his homeland of Auckland, NZ.
Terry tells me a true tale of which he and Gordon payed a lot of money to get this beautiful site up and running, but the folks who designed it sort of took their money and went up and running as well. This is very common in the internet design space and has led Terry to ask me questions about blogs and other tools that might help out their cause.

So this is the reason for this article. There are many, many ways to get your work out there, and if you have looked at their site you know that this work deserves to be seen. But, how does someone who pours all of their time, heart and passion into their craft have time to share it with the world? Thats where the easy to use web 2.0 tools come in. In years past we put up static websites that were nothing more than glorified brochures. These days we create interactive, engaging, and ever changing websites that allow us to form community around. So lets answer the question; “How do you learn about these tools, and how do you choose them?”

Tools of the Trade & Why use Them?

So, like any other project you need a list of tools. This by all means is not all of the tools you can use, but is the list of tools that I use the most.

The Blog - The blog comes first. Why? Because it’s Home-base. It’s the place where you want everything to funnel to. This will provide you with the google rankings that are so needed in getting your site views. If you have a site already existing, a blog is very easy to add. If you don’t want to play around with the technical side of setting it up, email my good friend Tommy Vallier and he’ll be glad to get you started. The Blogging software that I use is WordPress. Wordpress is super easy to use, even for a dummy woodturner like me. The Wordpress platform allows you to add text for articles, photo’s for a photo journal, video for video presentations, and just about any format of media you could think of.

So Why? Why a blog? Why not just a static website that shows and informs about what I do?
Three Reasons, and again these are simplified reasons to why a blog.

1. Recency - Google and all of the search engines love you to be recent. Google sends it’s spiders out to crawl your site every time there is an update added. Updates can be articles you write, photos you’ve posted or comments that others have left on your site.

2. Relevancy - Again, getting listed well in the search engines requires you to be relevant. You become relevant by posting and writing articles that are relevant to the site that you have. If I write a post on cooking, this may not help me much in fact it might even confuse the search engines. When I write about woodturning though this adds relevancy to my site. Google looks at me as a person adding to the good and relevant content available on the net. The other way to add relevancy is by building up links. When folks link to you, or you link to them this adds relevancy points in the mind of the search engines because you are linking together points of good information. To be relevant you have to be giving.

3. Community - There are many benefits to community. Community adds value to your site through comments. Community gives you word of mouth. Community supports you in your efforts in getting your name out there! A blog is a great place to build community if you work a little at it. When someone leaves a comment on your blog, be sure to email them a thank you. Be heartfelt in your community building and you will find others talking about you all over the place. Type Keith Burtis into google and you’ll see what I mean. Give to your community and they will give back. In fact, if you re reading this blog right now and you have other reasons to set up a blog for artists and creatives please leave me a comment in the comments box below. Thank you.

These are the basic rudimentary reasons for having a blog attached to your web presence.

Question #2 How do I add interactive Multi-Media Content to my Blog or website…and why???

This will be the basis for my next article. I will do a series of daily posts for the next three to four days outlining the ways an artist or creative professional can take advantage of easy to use interactive web tools to help their online presence. In the mean time here are a few links of things that I have done while sharing my passions with the community.

Creating a Dynamic Photo Portfolio
Sharing my Session on web tools for artists at Harvard, Podcamp Boston 3.

See you Tomorrow!
Keith Burtis

Popularity: 6% [?]

Friday evening I will be doing a show to honor a good friend of mine, Tommy Vallier. Tommy has been a guru in all things social media as well as my tech advisor 2.0. Without Tommy, the live shows, the blog, and many of the online successes I have had would not have been possible. Tommy and I met at Podcamp Toronto and have been great friends ever since connecting 3-4 times a week over skype since then.

THS SHOW IS BEING MOVED FROM FRIDAY EVENING TO SATURDAY EVENING DUE TO AN INJURY THAT OCCURED AT WORK. SORRY FOR THE PUSH BACK.

So, Friday evening I will be doing a live show on my Blog TV channel that will be fully inspired by the characteristics and traits that I know of Tommy Vallier. I have outlined these traits in my head and now have an artistic vision of what this piece should be. The traits guiding my inspiration are:

A solid foundation of knowledge. Tommy is a heck of a wordpress and website developer. This requires a good base of knowledge in many areas.

Experimental - In this space of web 2.0 you must be willing to try new things and experiment.

Flexible - When you hit a wall you must be flexible enough to maneuver around it.

Caring - Tommy is one of the most generous and caring people I know.

So how will i work all of these things into my art piece?
I guess you’ll have to stop in to my live show.

Friday Evening 8PM EST, Please come, see how I transform a block of wood into a meaningful energized piece of art. I will be answering questions as well as explaining my artistic process throughout the live show.

Photo of Tommy Vallier by Dave Delaney

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I’ve spent nearly all of the the last three days in my shop turning wood. A year ago this would have been fun for me, but not too much fun or engaging for others. Today, we have an onslaught of new media tools that let us take our obscure arts and bring them to the world.

During my “Woodturners Weekend” event I was able to share my woodturning with friends old and new all the while teaching and informing others about the age old craft of woodturning. Friday night I decided that I would try to raise funds for a new lathe. An offer had been made to me by a local woodturner that had a nearly new lathe and that he would be selling it, giving me first shot. As my small lathe has been on it’s last legs for some time now I decided to say yes to the lathe offer and figure out later how to get the money for the new purchase.

This brought me to my “Woodturners Weekend” event, an event I hope to hold yearly from this point on. I would stream my woodturning live to the internet through my blog TV channel, get people involved and see if I could sell my art as well as make a few new friends and acquaintances. Of course, through the good people in my network the event was a great success! Over the course of the weekend I sold nearly $400 in woodturned items generating enough income to give me the ability to purchase the new lathe that I will pick up this thursday night. My birthday is on August third so I guess the timing couldn’t be any better. When i get the new lathe set up I will post photos here on my site.

The picture above is a good representation of the items turned this weekend. I couldn’t fit all of the items in the picture so I pulled a good variety of the pieces I turned. The rest of the items that I have remaining unsold can be found at my storefront and are priced very reasonably.

Beyond the great news of getting the new lathe, I was amazed at the number of folks that came to the live woodturning shows. The connections and relationships I have made through the social media space are amazing. After my last show on Saturday evening I was asked to do an interview with Jim Long @NewmediaJim on Twitter, on how I bring my art to the social media space. Thank you Jim for the opportunity. If you are interested in listening to that interview I have it located at the bottom of the post. Just hit the play button to listen.

I also have many people to thank, and I hope I don’t forget anyone. First off I need to thank “everyone” who showed up to support me at my live stream and I would also like to thank Tommy Vallier for his assistance updating my blog as I progressed through the weekend. Tommy is a Wordpress genius.

Also I would like to thank:
Len Edgerly(@LenEdgerly) who Purchased a set of Sushi Dishes.
Sooz(@Sooz) who commissioned a group of items Friday night before the event started.
Mary Reagan(@MTKR) Who bought a beautiful bowl for a gift.
Alicia Staley (@Stales) Purchased a set of wine bottle stoppers.
John Piercy(@fotographic) Purchased a set of Wine Bottle Stoppers.
Zack Millican (@zackdman) Who purchased two sets of Sushi Dishes.
Patricia Anderson (@pfanderson) Who commissioned a special piece made from Brown Mallee Burl.
Whitney Hoffman (@LDPodcast) For purchasing a Gavel & Stryker Combo.
Christine Taylor (@Mousewords) For her amazing blog post!

And again thanking “Everyone” who played a hand in making my weekend go great!

My Discussion with Jim Long.

Keith Burtis

Popularity: 6% [?]

My Woodturners weekend is going well, but I am going to do some production style wood turning of my Exotic wood wine stoppers today from 12 Noon to 1:30PM EST and I will sell each and every one that I make for only $5.00! Add on Free shipping and there is no better deal to be had.

The Livestream of the event will take place at my Blog TV Homepage.

The items I have already Created for my Woodturners Weekend are HERE.

If you are interested in one of the Exotic Wood Stoppers during the event, my Paypal is keith@magicwoodworks.com. Or hit the Buy now button below.

Learn more about my “Woodturners Weekend” by going here.

NOTE: This is a one time only event. The exotic wood stoppers are always $7.00 plus shipping at my etsy storefront, so act today, and thank you for your support.

Keith Burtis

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