Woodworkers' Guild December Meeting in Helena, Montana

Our December meeting will be a party!


Hi all, this month we'll meet on Friday, Dec. 14th at Mike and Priscilla Bode's house and shop. The best parking is behind the Bode's house.

Spouses and significant others are most definitely invited. Please bring an appetizer/hors d'oeuvres to share (check out the incredible spread we came up with for our exhibit opening night -- think we can top that?)


The main program is Fun, with a few bits of guild business thrown in just so we can say we had a meeting. On the fun agenda:

• Fine Woodworking Magazine has asked our members to submit photos of our best, woodworking for their print and/or online readers' gallery. We'll talk about ways to photograph your work to show it off effectively as well as formats for sending your photographs to Fine Woodworking and other woodworking journals
• Recap of the past year: what we've accomplished as a guild for our members and for the Helena community
• Ideas and discussion on how we can make our website better
• A chance for new members and folks interested in becoming members to visit with all of us in a social setting. Don't be shy -- if you are interested in joining the guild, please come - we'd like to meet you.
  

Date: December 14, 2007
Place: 811 8th Avenue
Time: 5:30 pm til whenever
Agenda: 2007 guild recap; photographing your work; socializing & fun
More Info: call Lance Seaman (442-4143) or the Bodes (495-9672) or email helenawoodworkers(at)gmail.com

Your Time, Helena IR article about Woodworkers Guild

Our guild members got some great publicity in the Helena Independent Record weekly arts publication, Your Time.

Reporter and YT editor, Emily Donahoe, interviewed Dave Carlson and Tim Carney about the history and purpose of the guild and about the large number of talented woodworkers in Helena. Excerpts from the YT article:

If a piece of handmade furniture is no less than a work of art, then there are many artists among us.

According to Helena Woodworkers Guild president Tim Carney, however, a lot of them are still, shall we say, hidden in the woodwork.

The Helena Woodworkers Guild is a group of professionals and hobbyists who meet once a month to share tools and techniques, and a potluck dish or a few. The guild is exhibiting a variety of work at the Myrna Loy Center through the end of November.

Seated in an elegant, sculptural rocking chair he made himself, the tall, soft-spoken Carney and his physical opposite, the compact Dave Carlson of D. Carlson Woodworker Fine Furniture, discussed their craft and the wealth of talented woodworkers based locally.
Read more

Dave Carlson and Tim goofing off in Dave's shop

all photos in the YT article and in this blog post Copyright © Maureen Shaughnessy

Gift Idea for the Woodworker in Your Life

We now have gift membership cards available.

Here is a thoughtful gift for the woodworker in your life: a gift membership in the Helena Woodworkers' Guild. We welcome anyone with an interest in woodworking. It doesn't matter if they are beginners or experts; our guild has all kinds of woodworkers.

Guild members participate in our monthly meetings; get a listing and gallery on our website, Sawdust & Shavings; and receive regular communications about special guild events and opportunities for community service. All guild members are also entitled to enter one or more woodworking pieces in our annual Art of Wood exhibit which takes place during the Helena Fall ArtWalk.

If you do not live in the greater Helena area, and want to give something like this to a woodworker, please check this list of Canadian and US woodworkers clubs to find a guild or club closer to home. They may have gift memberships available.

How to Grow as a Woodworker: Invite a Critique

Our Guild had the pleasure and honor of being critiqued by three excellent commentators Tuesday evening, November 12. The three "jurors" this year were Liz Gans, co-director of the Holter Museum of Art, Janeen McCarvel, interior designer at Boxwoods, and Richard Notkin, a ceramics sculptor and former resident of the Archie Bray Foundation. Liz, Janeen and Richard shared their personal responses to the variety of functional and art objects crafted by our woodworkers.



This is the second year we have had a critique during the run of our woodworking exhibit, and it was again educational and inspiring to hear from three very different people who are all so knowledgeable in their fields.



Richard Notkin asked of the group, "How do you challenge yourselves?" I am not a woodworker, though I feel blessed to be married to a woodworker. Even so, I really resonated with Richard's question because I make a living as a designer and artist, and that's something I ask myself constantly. How not to become stale with my designs and my artwork? For me, being the recipient of a critique has been something of a challenge most of my life. It ain't always easy to be open to criticism, even if the criticism is constructive. If you really put your heart into your work, you are personally invested in it. And it's easy to take a critique too personally.

So .... I would say in some ways, the members of the guild who attended Tuesday night's critique were challenging themselves. And hopefully everyone took away something positive from the critique -- perhaps more self confidence, a renewed commitment to growth in your work, or maybe an affirmation that your woodworking is going in a good direction.



I hope the guild continues to invite critique as a regular part of our annual exhibits and as a way to challenge ourselves to look critically at our own artistic growth.

all photos Copyright © 2007 by Maureen Shaughnessy

Art of Wood Opening Reception a Success

Click on the arrow to start the slideshow. To see larger versions of the photos, click on the photo itself. Thanks for looking!

2007 Art of Wood Exhibit Opens

Maureen shot some photos while we were setting up the show at the Myrna Loy Center on Friday. Please enjoy this slideshow as a preview of what you can see in person during our exhibit from November 2nd through the 30th.



We will add more photos to this slideshow as we process them. There will also be a continuous-loop slideshow at the opening reception the evening of November 9th, with photos from all Guild members. If you are a member of the Guild and have not given Maureen photos of your work, please get your (digital) photos to her by early next week (Nov. 5th or 6th) -- now is your chance to show off your woodworking.