Phil Abraham : Wood Turner
Phil is a Poole based woodturner.
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His main body of work explores the simple, but elegant, functionality that can be found in wooden objects. His preferred medium is wood that has a background: collected from where it grew, complete with its history.
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Phil-osophy
Wherever we look, from remote rural areas to the inner city, trees stand providing shade, habitat, freshening the air we breathe, and providing a long-lasting natural presence in even the most mundane surroundings. Their internal structures record their growth, leaving a permanent record in the timber. This record is the ‘grain’ we see in the wood we use.
With a little experience, the visualisation of the potential grain patterns, hidden within the wood, can lead to the development of beautiful objects that show the hidden beauty to best effect. These allow the tree to project its history and beauty forward beyond its natural life. This is particularly the case with wood turning.
However, a tree is not just a source of beauty, it is also a guardian of memories captured over time.
One of Phil’s ongoing projects involves trees with sentimental attachments, such as a tree that a family’s children grew up with, or a tree commemorating a passed family member or pet. Where a tree reaches the end of its life, all too often, it will be felled with the timber, and the linked memories, consigned to landfill or the fire. Phil, in collaboration with the tree's guardian ( we never really 'own' a tree) will harvest key parts of the tree and produce a commemorative object such as a bowl, platter, or hollow form, that can provide an enduring memory of the joy the tree, and it’s associated memories, bought them over the years.
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