This past weekend I attended the American Association of Woodturners Symposium at the Portland Convention center.
The symposium consisted of many vendor booths and a gallery of inspiring woodworking pieces. I bought some wood and some mother-of-pearl flakes and chips for doing inlay work. I’ve included some photos from the gallery below. I didn’t think far enough ahead so I don’t have all the names of who made what. Sorry.
While the symposium itself was fun, the highlight for me was meeting with some YouTubers the night before at a restaurant near the convention center. I got to hang out with Carl Jacobson and Heath Knuckles and laugh over drinks while listening to stories (from another YouTuber and his wife – I won’t list their names here for privacy reasons) of near death experiences while taking nude photos at the beach and his adventures doing nipple castings at an erotic art convention in Rochester.
The following day I met up with Gord Rock from Canada. If you haven’t checked out his channel, I highly recommend it. He does some really nice woodturning but he is also an excellent teacher and one of the nicest guys I have ever met (which makes sense since he’s Canadian).
A pleasant surprise was running into Frank Howarth as he was walking around. It was actually pretty awkward since I think I caught him off-guard and I probably came off as a stalker since I’m a big fan of his. I am a student of film and I always appreciate when someone really puts some effort into their YouTube videos. Every single one of his videos is expertly put together and both entertaining and educational. One of his pieces, the eyeball, is pictured below.
