W. G. (Bill) Neddow WHAT Woodturner WHERE Home studio, 4338 Armitage Ave., Dunrobin, 832-3304 Keffer Gallery, 128 Queen St., Almonte Kanata Civic Art Gallery, John G. Mlacak Centre SHOWS Crown and Pumpkin Studio Tour, Clayton area, Oct. 11-13 Craft Christmas Gift Show, Nepean Sportsplex, Nov. 5-9 Art Exposed, Dunrobin, Sept. '04 WHY "It's like playing golf - a competition with yourself to get as good as you can." See samples of Bill's work

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Bill Neddow - A Bowl in One
By Sally Hansen

Thirty-five years ago W. G. (Bill) Neddow bought a lathe at Canadian Tire for $29.95, hooked it up to an old motor he had lying around, and tried to turn a bowl. The result was so disappointing - "I couldn't even make it round!" - that he gave up on trying to turn his love for wood into turning bowls.

When he retired five years ago, after he had built a wonderful house on the Ottawa River in Dunrobin, and become a skilled cabinet maker while building a 36-foot boat, Neddow decided to take his wife's advice to try woodturning again. This time he bought a top quality lathe, and has never turned back.

"I really learned what a difference good tools make," he exclaimed as he showed me around his expertly-equipped workshop. On his OneWay "Cadillac of lathes," his bowls and more exotic pieces are now whatever shape he wants them to be.

The Eye's the Thing
Like any art form, although the tools are essential, the main factor in woodturning is the artist's ability to visualise "that elusive, perfect bowl in that rough hunk of wood." Neddow likens the challenge to what drives serious golfers - "a competition with yourself to get as good as you can." He strives for "the purity of form that looks so simple when you get it right." I think of athletes and dancers as well as visual artists.

He tells me that even with his new lathe it was quite a steep learning curve. A former journalist (The Ottawa Citizen and The Calgary Herald), and a manager of publications at Finance Canada, CIDA and the World Bank, Bill devoted most of his new retirement leisure to studying design and practising technique. Mostly self-taught, he devoured books on woodturning and studied classic Grecian and Roman works. Japanese art provided his inspiration for beauty through simplicity and imposed a sense of discipline. He is also influenced by his travels in Africa, where the sophisticated merging of the spiritual and physical aspects of life have had a big effect on his work.

All's Well That's Turned Well
Bill uses reclaimed local wood for about 95% of his pieces. Lately, most of it has come from land clearance operations between Kanata Lakes and Morgan's Grant. He has been able to rescue butternut, sugar maple, elm and white ash, as well as black cherry logs measuring up to 18 inches in diameter.

It takes almost a year to transform these green pieces of wood into a bowl. After chain sawing a log into moveable chunks, he hauls them home. Then he cuts them into bowl-sized pieces and does a first rough turning. That's when the fun begins. His goal as he cuts into the green wood is to work with the wood - to find a form that highlights colours and grain patterns; that reveals the intricate tracings of spalting lines; that takes advantage of the bark inclusions of a burl.

Occasionally Bill creates a form out of green wood, allowing the piece to warp naturally as it dries. A beautiful example is his "Butterscotch Flower" turned from box elder and measuring 14" x 6" (see another great photo). Usually he boils the roughed pieces to reduce stresses in the wood and prevent cracking. Then he waxes them to promote even drying and lets them air dry for at least nine months. Eventually he remounts the rough bowl on the lathe to create his finished piece.

A Bowl in One
Neddow's fascination with his medium and his passion for pursuing the elusive form within have turned this former duffer into a winner. This past August Bill took the award for Excellence in Originality at the 2003 Ottawa Wood Show with a Purpleheart footed bowl. A member of the American Association of Woodturners, five of his bowls are pictured on their website at the above address. Take a look at www.thehumm.com for additional shots.

Better yet, come out and see for yourself when Bill Neddow is a guest exhibitor at Stop 3 during the upcoming Crown and Pumpkin Studio Tour in the Clayton area on Thanksgiving Weekend, Oct. 11-13. Bill will also be participating in the Craft Christmas Gift Show at Nepean Sportsplex, Nov. 5-9, and at the Ottawa Woodworking Show, Lansdowne Park, Nov. 21-23. On an ongoing basis, his pieces are available at Keffer Gallery in Almonte, Snapdragon in Ottawa, the Kanata Civic Art Gallery in the Mlacak Centre, Cornerstone in Kingston, and Gallary Arbor Gallery in Van Kleek Hill.