Protect the Queen

Oh my! This is really cool!! All of the different textures and shapes are fantastic.

Very creative! Excellent and beautiful piece!

I'm participating in my first symposium next week in Louisville, and I wanted to push myself and make something special for the instant gallery. This is my largest and most involved piece by a longshot. I mounted the main flower at a pretty steep angle so that it appears to be moving and searching for something. The piece is pretty three-dimensional, and I tried to photograph it the best I could. There are a lot of different components, 15 of which are turned:

• The Redbud bowls are the most significant. The main flower consists of 9 bowls of increasing size turned from individual burls. I turned them thin and let them warp so that they appear as irregular petals. Redbud has an amazing contrast between the sapwood and heartwood, and the burl warps significantly. Together, I think the "nest" looks like a disturbing wilting flower that's searching for something. I turned 4 additional bowls to serve as protector/soldier flowers to guard the queen as she searches for whatever.
• Cat Greenbrier made for some nice defensive stems, and also gave me the flexibility to wrap and twist around the main flower. I coated the stems in black lacquer and epoxied them to the base and flowers, as well as at every contact point. The twisted tendrils add some interesting shapes, and remind me of little feelers searching the perimeter for danger.
• The main flower's stem is hollow, with the exception of a 3'ish section where it's very narrow. This was a challenging component, but was fun to figure out. I turned a long Bradford Pear spindle, and then cut it apart into several pieces. I then reassembled the pieces and epoxied them together, before sanding the curves smooth. Afterward, I carved "grain" lines along the length of the stem, and textured the entire surface with a fine ball burr. The whole stem is ebonized via India ink.
• The "stamen" of the flower is a little piece of Gaboon Ebony that I turned and carved. It serves an aesthetic purpose, but is also functional as it is epoxied to an oak dowel that runs through the flower and attaches to the stem.
• The Silver Maple base was a very challenging component that I almost scrapped. Thankfully, I slept on that decision, and decided to keep it in the end. I wanted something with a weathered, gnarly appearance to match the rest of the scene. Silver Maple has so many colors present, especially on the bark side, and the little burl eyes are fun and interesting. The wild topography also gave me placement options for attaching the greenbrier stems. It took a lot of work to get the base to look just right, including wirebrushing the top, and hand-carving, sanding, charring, and wirebrushing the bottom. I added three little Birch plug feet underneath to stabilize the base.

Anyway, I could drone on and on about the process, but I'll stop there. I'm happy to answer any questions, and if you read this description, congrats and thank you! This piece has been my turning life the past couple of weeks, so I can't help but word vomit I'll post some additional photos in a separate reply below.

Some additional views and detail shots:

Wow!

Thank you Gabriel, Dennis, and Kevin!

It all becomes clear now. Very nice! I wood not have guessed that was what it was going to turn into from the teaser pictures you posted.

Sam Fleisher said:

It all becomes clear now. Very nice! I wood not have guessed that was what it was going to turn into from the teaser pictures you posted.

Click to expand...

Thanks Sam! If you had guessed it, I would have called you a psychic

WOW! This is amazing Michael! You have really pulled together some great ideas into a very cool piece. I hope you blow them away at the symposium!

That piece should be able to compete with anything that anyone else brings for artwork. Very nice and detailed. I wondered what you were gong to do with all those little bowls.