Randy Peerenboom

[Randy Peerenboom]

Hello everyone

I have been a member of AAW since I began turning around 2011 or so. I recently returned to the US (San Diego) from China, where I spent most of the last 30 years. When I got started turning in China, since the available woods were different, I went to a sawmill and got 3 tons of various species - it didn't look like that much when I was there but it was a lot when it got delivered! Over the next few years I worked my way through it all turning pretty much everything - bowls, platters, vessels, bracelets, Harry Potter wands - while experimenting with carving, inlay, airbrushing and pyrography.

Nowadays, my goals is to combine my interests in Daoism, Buddhism, meditation and calligraphy with Zen aesthetic principles to create unique wood art pieces. I will post some pieces of recent work. While I use the lathe to do vessels with finials, open vases and platters, I also do "flat" or sculptural pieces with natural edges (like the one attached - the characters mean The Zen Way....)

Anyway, I'm glad to finally have easy access to the Forum. For some reason, I always had problems accessing it from China.

Randy

 

[Randy Peerenboom]

Woops, I think that was not the right way to attach a picture...

 

[hockenbery]

Glad to see you here.
30 years in China sounds like an interesting time.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Hi Randy. Welcome to the AAW forum.

 

[Lamar Wright]

Welcome Randy to the AAW forum.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Welcome to our fold

 

[RichColvin]

Where in China ?

Rich

 

[Randy Peerenboom]

I was in Beijing mostly though I also lived in Nanjing for a year. I spent a couple of years in Tokyo (1982-1984), some time in Singapore and Taiwan, and made yearly trips to Australia, usually Melbourne, where I taught a course on Chinese law, watched the Australian Open tennis tournament, and generally enjoyed the great weather, food and wine.

It was an interesting period to be in China - tremendously fast development - visitors who came every 6 months would always be amazed that whole areas would have been cleared and new construction started. Japan was also very interesting though. Those were the years when Japan was leapfrogging ahead of the US in terms of growth. But what struck me was the aesthetics and the incredible attention to detail in daily contexts. Very different aesthetic than China in many ways.

Great to have people to talk to! China limited social media - youtube, etc. - so I felt a bit cut off. Lot of incredible carving and woodworking in China, but not a lot of turners and what there is is pretty rudimentary and utilitarian. I had to bring back most of the tools and relied on books, CDs and magazines for tips and guidance, although I did take a course at Folk and Arrowmont when I was back in the US and arranged a visit for Dave Hout and Steve Hatcher, who did a couple of demos at the local woodworking club. More recently Terry Martin came through trying to establish some contacts with various national level organizations to promote woodturning. Some of the big companies are also starting to get interested - there were Powermatic lathes at one of the trade shows before I left.

Randy

 

[John Torchick]

Welcome to the forum. Seems like you are a candidate for The Most Interesting Man. You mean you were in Australia and didn't try Foster's beer? My father was in Aussie land during WWII and said they had the best beer in the world. I'm sure he tried that beverage in many places from the Midwest to the Pacific Rim.
Off topic a bit- Japan is interesting, to say the least. I was surfing the net and looked at videos of Japanese and Vietnamese barber shops. Strictly haircuts and not what you might think. We are talking about a haircut lasting an hour with head massage and a meticulous, perfect haircut. Did you have any similar experiences in Asia?

 

[Randy Peerenboom]

Welcome to the forum. Seems like you are a candidate for The Most Interesting Man. You mean you were in Australia and didn't try Foster's beer? My father was in Aussie land during WWII and said they had the best beer in the world. I'm sure he tried that beverage in many places from the Midwest to the Pacific Rim.
Off topic a bit- Japan is interesting, to say the least. I was surfing the net and looked at videos of Japanese and Vietnamese barber shops. Strictly haircuts and not what you might think. We are talking about a haircut lasting an hour with head massage and a meticulous, perfect haircut. Did you have any similar experiences in Asia?

Hey John, had my share of beer too in Australia! Asian "barbershops" are indeed interesting - funny hours they keep - you wouldn't think so many people would need a haircut at 2:00 AM.... But head massages were definitely big in China even in your local places. Pretty relaxing.