In his small and comfy Massachusetts workshop, nature fanatic and professional craftsman Ray Asselin designs and constructs one-of-a-kind pocket vases. He creates every vase by strategies of woodturning—a craft through which wooden is minimize and formed utilizing a lathe. With a deep appreciation for each nature and craftsmanship, Asselin creates items that exhibit all the things wooden has to supply, from its pure attract to its transformative and creative capabilities.
Rising up in stunning and verdant New England, Asselin has had a lifelong relationship with nature—particularly, with bushes. “The pure world has at all times been a draw for me, and I really feel rooted (pardon the pun) within the forests of my ‘dwelling vary,’” he explains on his website. “There is no such thing as a different place for me that may very well be dwelling. And so, I totally get pleasure from exploring the woods and hills round me.” In his early twenties, Asselin’s love of the woodlands grew right into a love of woodwork. after taking a category in woodturning, he found that he discovered “step by step changing a uncooked chunk of the log right into a completed piece” a naturally interesting and personally fulfilling course of.
Since falling in love with the craft, Asselin has made his residing as a woodturner—and stays devoted to his ardor. “Whereas I do not take into account myself an artist as a lot as an artisan, I do attempt to produce turned items with easy, swish curves which can be proportionally pleasing,” he says. This aesthetic strategy is especially evident in his vases, which Asselin crafts from a variety of woods, together with Purple Maple, American Elm, Australian Snakewood, and Oriental Bittersweet Vine. Usually, a single vase creatively options each polished surfaces and the untouched grain of the wooden. This juxtaposition is each visually placing and conceptually fascinating. By making the most of the wooden’s uncooked magnificence whereas additionally crafting it into a ravishing object, you undoubtedly get one of the best of each world.
Asselin’s assortment of vases and vessels fluctuate in peak, starting from roughly six to eight inches, and provide quite a lot of silhouettes, together with basic urns, cylinders, gourds, and extra. You could find them—in addition to stunning bowls, sturdy memento containers, distinctive lamps, and different ornamental gadgets—at Timberturner + Bowlwood, his small store situated in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley. If you happen to can’t make it to Pioneer Valley, you can even discover his beautiful wooded items on Bowlwood, his store’s gallery website, in addition to Asselin’s Etsy.
via Design You Trust