ADORE WOODS
Woodturner Norman Ridenour, a former California sculptor and furniture designer now works under the name, Adorewoods. Bohemian woods provide both inspiration and raw material. Long hikes yield the ideas and the trees themselves are cut in local forests, gardens and orchards. The result is a line of contemporary, one of a kind, hand made wooden bowls, vases, trays and other items. European brown oak, ash, pear, apple, cherry, maple and chestnut all appear in the output from time to time depending on the season and what has been recently been cut. Ridenour, moved to the Czech Republic over a decade and a half ago to build a new life and he discovered that the huge supply of beautiful wood was too much temptation to resist. He went back to working with his hands, this time as a woodturner.
After two sculpture exhibits in Prague Ridenour is now creating functional sculpture: art to be used, hand turned bowls, and other pieces. His limited edition work is now available for you to buy as instant heirlooms for you, your family and friends. These pieces make ideal Christmas, anniversary, wedding or Mother's Day gifts. Best buy them for yourself. Here is the opportunity to have an elegant wood object, each with its personal history. Each piece is signed and dated and comes with a map showing where the tree was cut and the story behind that tree. There is no effort made to create identical pieces though favorite forms recur but with variations from piece to piece. Therefore if you see a piece you love, order it now. It will soon be on its way to a new home.
The wood, single unlaminated pieces, is usually worked on the woodlathe while still wet and then left to dry. In the drying process the thin, 2-4 mm or 1/8th in, walls are free to distort and reshape. Often in the end, only a little remains of the symmetrical form generated on the lathe. Sensual, organic shapes incorporating small knots, spalting, and radical grain patterns emerge from the studio. The work is finished with oil and wax yielding a soft satin surface which is indefinitely renewable and totally safe for food.
Putting his political and social beliefs into action Ridenour never cuts a tree only to get the wood. Wood is salvaged from orchard culling, wind blown trees, urban expansion, planned forest management and factory scrap in Bohemia and Moravia. Every piece has rescued from someone's fire place.
Buy one of the pieces shown, inquire about a design done in a different wood or a different size. In any case please go to the contact page and send your comments and subscribe to the periodic newsletter with photos of the latest work and stories of life in Bohemia and working with wood.