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J. Paul Fennell | Coriolis

Currency:USD Category:Art / Medium - Wood Start Price:NA
J. Paul Fennell | Coriolis
J. Paul Fennell, Scottsdale, Arizona

Coriolis, 2014
Mesquite wood
7 x 7 x 7 inches | 17.78 x 17.78 x 17.78 cm



Biography:
I have focused primarily on turning hollow forms for nearly 30 years of the 48 years as a woodturner. I was first exposed to woodturning in 1970 through an adult education woodworking class at a local high school, intending to improve my skills at furniture making. However, that idea ceased immediately when I began working with the woodturning lathes there, and have never looked back. I am basically self-taught, and with an extensive engineering background, learned successful techniques, how to make my own tools as necessary, and have remained passionate about the field throughout my career. . My work has been featured in nearly every major magazine and book with respect to woodturning. My art resides in major private collections nationally and internationally, and in many museum collections, including: the Smithsonian, Detroit Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Cincinnati Art Museum, Museum of Art & Design, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
I have been a member of the American Association of Woodturners for 34 years, a featured demonstrator at their annual symposium numerous times, and a workshop teacher and demonstrator for schools and local clubs nationally and internationally for many years.
Artist Statement:
The vessel form is intriguing to me in that it is a common artifact of humanity, timeless and ubiquitous culturally. When these artifacts are discovered or unearthed, we learn much from societies of the past because of their particular form and unpretentious embellishment of cultural symbols, sacred icons and images that were important to them in their everyday lives. It seems natural to me to follow this path of creating work, through form and embellishment, that relates similarly but individually to my own experiences, relationships, beliefs and things that are personally significant.
My current work appropriates ideas and concepts through patterns derived from nature, mathematics, architecture and the interplay of energy and movement, an important relationship that relates to the dynamics between nature and the environment.

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