HWA (Hampshire Woodturners Association) Challenge June2011 Entries

These were my entries for Monday night's HWA Challenge - June 2011

Little Green Apples - a shallow bowl made from sycamore.
Pre-cut heart shape and turned out with a very sharp gouge
to prevent the tip from being broken off. Approx 2mm thick

Soapbox time!


Those who know me very well know that with rare exceptions I don't take competitions very seriously at all. But then I have an excuse for my attitude.

Throughout my life,  Hypermobility has been a real problem, affecting  my joints and how my body is able to perform, making it painful to participate in sports. Although I did play a select number of them, the fact was there was no chance of me getting to the top of anything.

Little Lemon Tree. I don't think many people got this.
The inference was that the challenge this month was
'a bit of a lemon (waste of time)'. I had a laugh though.

It didn't stop me trying though.

Although I didn't recognise it as a child, I believe that the knowledge that I would never get to win made the participation in the activity more important than the Silver Cup, an attitude that has remained with me ever since.

As my children have grown up, I have watched the emphasis in the way schools treat sports move away from winning to an attempt to develop team skills and positive attitude toward participation in team games and sports in general - to the point where our children don't seem to have the necessary drive to even try and make the top three (oh - sorry - these days only the top one counts) places. About 10 years ago - the shift started changing in order to try and combat that attitude, so far with little success. Sad, but true. And now the government is having to advertise on radio and TV in order to get enough competitors together to take part in the Olympic Games. Or is that as a result of bad funding for many years... ?

Ring A Ring 'o Roses.   Rings turnbed from Red Deer Antler.
They will both fit my pinkie. The roses come from
a climbing rose in the back garden. Nicely
photographed by Phil Bristow. Thanks Phil!

Anyway - getting off my soapbox and back to the HWA Challenge - the wood turning club I attend holds a challenge once every three months instead of an annual competition. The idea was to encourage more people to take part, because the format allows anyone, no matter what their skill level, to win if their interpretation of a concept titillates the imagination of the general populace present who vote for their favourite three entries.

Judging is based on how much you like a piece, not by how well it is made. This means that someone with basic skill but lots of creativity and gumption is able to beat someone else who turns the most technically advanced piece in the universe. It also means that an item thrown together in 3 minutes could beat one that took 20 hours to make.

Ring of Fire

I wasn't going to go on Monday, as I had not been inspired enough by the categories we were given to work with to actually make anything to take. Apparently a lot of others felt the same - there were only 14 entries this time round and a reduced attendance...  At 5pm, my kids pressurised me into agreeing to go out as they wanted to watch a Sci-Fi movie with loud surround sound (yuck). So at 5.15 I started putting together some entries for the 4 categories - Ring of FIre, Ring A Ring 'o Roses, Little Lemon Tree and Little Green Apples. Not terribly inviting to me, I must admit. An hour later they were ready and in my bag for their trip out to the display tables.



For what they are worth - enjoy.