Are there "common" levels of wood turner vocabulary knowledge, concept understanding, and skill, besides "novice/beginner?" Intermediate? Advanced/master? And are there descriptions to determine a turner's level?
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Wood Turner Skill Levels
- Thread starter Don Stephan
- Start date
I spent 20 minutes writing a long and detailed response with lots of examples then realized it really boiled down to "I don't think so."
It's not worth worrying about. Do what you do and try to improve every time you turn on the lathe. This world is too full of labels and endlessly trying to categorize everything and everybody.
Everyone is an expert on the internet.
I've never understood why it's important to be classified as beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert, etc. If you're enjoying what you do then you will learn new techniques, increase your skill level, and enjoy what you're doing even more. For me, it isn't important what that skill level is or what it is called. I enjoy producing a quality product. That gives me satisfaction. So, I'm not sure why you're asking nor if I even got why you asked correct, but just enjoy the wood turning and the result of it.
There isn't a woodturning guilde in the US that you have to join, start as an apprentice, become a journeyman, and finally be certified as a master. That may still exist in Europe. The only place that I can see it making any difference is taking a hands on class, such as Craft Supplies' school. If you are a complete beginner, as in never seen a lathe, you would not enjoy an advanced class, the rest of the students may get very frustrated because the instructor spends most of the time helping you. Or if you are reasonably skilled and take a beginner course, you might get bored sick learning what a headstock, tailstock, faceplate turning, and turning between centers is.
Dave Landers
Beta Tester
I can see a couple reasons to "label" someone (or yourself).
One would be for a class/demo - either describing who will benefit from your class or else deciding if you will benefit from a particular class.
Another would be for something like a club's instant gallery critique or president's challenge, etc - putting entries in categories so they're not compared unfairly with someone with much greater or lesser skills.
In either case, the boundaries between whatever categories exist are vague - a lot of overlap and/or no-mans-land. So self-identification is generally adequate for these sorts of things.
In other cases (like applying for a juried show etc) let the work speak for itself.
My $0.02
One would be for a class/demo - either describing who will benefit from your class or else deciding if you will benefit from a particular class.
Another would be for something like a club's instant gallery critique or president's challenge, etc - putting entries in categories so they're not compared unfairly with someone with much greater or lesser skills.
In either case, the boundaries between whatever categories exist are vague - a lot of overlap and/or no-mans-land. So self-identification is generally adequate for these sorts of things.
In other cases (like applying for a juried show etc) let the work speak for itself.
My $0.02
The OP's question is reasonable. It's hard not to carefully examine a turner's work and make some judgement or rating of a turner's skill level by the quality of workmanship in the piece.
Unfortunately there's isn't always a one to one correlation between the workmanship and the artistic quality of the work. Of course art is in the eye of the beholder, but still there are some works that appeal to the majority of viewer's sense of art.
These days we have so many ways to more easily achieve quality of workmanship (expensive equipment, CNC, threading jigs, ball turning jigs, etc, etc), but the design still is the most important and difficult IMO.
Unfortunately there's isn't always a one to one correlation between the workmanship and the artistic quality of the work. Of course art is in the eye of the beholder, but still there are some works that appeal to the majority of viewer's sense of art.
These days we have so many ways to more easily achieve quality of workmanship (expensive equipment, CNC, threading jigs, ball turning jigs, etc, etc), but the design still is the most important and difficult IMO.
Well, I guess we could say that I am a well seasoned turner! Far better on bowls than on spindles, but I am getting better with the skew....
robo hippy
robo hippy
Lots of woodturners I know (and other friends) are "well seasoned". Oh, did you mean relative to turning experience/ability?
Some of the best demonstrators I know are adept at providing something for nearly all skill levels, showing something complicated, for example, then show a simpler way to do about the same thing, perhaps pass around a simpler version brought from home. Some describe the project and steps then ask if there is anything in particular some would like to see.
I want to be just like them when I grow up.
JKJ