Introducing the turned wood of Allen Davis

Purple Heart Bowl

Beginning this week we will be featuring the functional turned wood of Allen Davis from Winchester Woodworks.

Come down this month to see the wide variety of designs in domestic and exotic wood from his shop in Waynesville, NC, including wood table settings, bowls, wine stoppers, and hand carved pens.

Allen is a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild and has been turning wood since "retirement" in 1997.  

From his website:

Woodworker Davis spent his professional years as head of two Florida corporations.  With leisure time to be filled in 1997, the retired executive revived his interest in woodcraft, dormant since teen years in Industrial Arts classes.

Largely self-taught, he works from his studio/shop in Waynesville, NC, surrounded by great stacks of logs, stumps, branches, roots, castoff cuts, rejected knotty burls, and other natural resources awaiting transformation.  Bartered treasures from other craftsmen-pottery & glass-often add artistic function to his turned bowls and trays.  Another interest-motorhome travel-presents  opportunities to gather unusual additions to his raw materials:  Florida beach driftwood, California redwood roots, Louisiana swamp cypress and pecan, Mississippi tupelo or black gum, North Carolina dogwood and apple, and weathered South Carolina barnwood. 

Davis attended the University of Miami in Florida, has taken classes at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and has studied privately with recognized wood turning specialists-Nick Cook, Don Russell and the late Willard Baxter.

Allen is a big believer in functional art, something we can appreciate.  He is proud that all his work is made to be used, and just happens to be beautiful.  

I believe that art can and should be combined with functionality.  My work has value for my buyers because I focus on function.  Creating artful one-of-a-kind items from nature’s bounty with a utilitarian purpose seems to me to be the best of both worlds--practical, yet beautiful works of art. 

Well said!  We are very excited to feature local turned wood in the gallery, and very lucky that Allen chose us to showcase his art.

Asheville crafts from Van Dyke Jewelry and Fine Craft.