Tennessee Texas A&M Raised in Houston, Texas, my earliest memories of woodworking were as a young boy cutting and nailing wood scraps together in my father's woodworking shop. There was a woodturning lathe that saw very little use until I read an article in "Fine Woodworking" on bowl turning and the rest is history. I continued my woodturning interest in college as a Teaching Assistant in the wood shop at Texas A&M in the 1980s. In 1999, after a long hiatus from woodturning, I was able to start turning again when we moved back to Atlanta and my wife surprised me with a VB36 lathe for my shop. I have been woodturning since the 1980s and selling my work through galleries since 2005. This is my avocation. As an artist, I intend to create bowls and vessels utilizing wood as the medium and turning as the process by which I make my work. I use the forms and shapes as "canvas" to bring out the inherent natural beauty in the wood. Form, shape, color, and texture are the elements I use to create each piece. There is a natural beauty to wood and I strive to enhance that beauty through my work.