Lathe Turning Workshops in Portland, Maine

Length: 9 hours over 3 weeks
Times: 6-9 pm
Class Fee: Bowls: $460, Spindles: $480

Bowls: Nov 17, Dec 1 & 8 (Thanksgiving week skipped) - SOLD OUT
Spindles: Jan 12, 19, & 26
Bowls: Apr 28, May 5 & 12

We offer two beginner level workshops:

Bowl turning: Learn how to turn small (8-10 inch) bowls. You'll start with material preparation and sharpening, and then do some activities to challenge your cutting touch. The core of the workshop is learning to turn bowls using bowl gouges and negative rake scrapers. You'll end with sanding and finishing techniques.
Spindle turning: Learn how to turn between centers, focusing on turning spindles from rough stock, and turning coves and beads. These are the skills needed to make furniture parts for chairs, stools, and chair legs and parts. Exercises will challenge your cutting touch and teach you to sharpen lathe edge tools.

For both workshops, the class fee includes materials.

About the instructors:
Paloma Díaz-Dickson (bowls) is a Portland-based illustrator, artist, and woodworker. She was born in Houston, TX, and grew up in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, in a home where play, work, and making things were inextricably and happily linked together. Her educational background is in illustration, but she decided to dive into woodworking as part of her MFA thesis project and has never looked back. Moving away from digital and 2D illustration, her work has become more three-dimensional and she enjoys straddling the line between fine arts, craft, and design. Plainly put, she just likes making objects and is at the moment focusing on hand turned wooden objects.
Rob Jansen (spindles) is a woodworker with a background in scenic and environments design. His woodworking craft was shaped through hands-on study, including a two-year program with Gary Rogowski, and workshops in traditional chairmaking with Pete Galbert and Peter Follansbee. While Rob recently moved to Portland, he previously worked as a designer and teacher after receiving his MFA from North Carolina. Teaching holds a special place for Rob and it gives him joy to bring his love of making to people from all backgrounds who want to either build their skills or simply step into something more present and tactile.