"Woodturning should be called the addictive art. Once begun, it is nearly impossible to stop thinking about it. I'm an Associate Professor in a biology department at the Ohio State University and my woodturning obsession competes madly with my love of doing science. I have an office in the basement of my hom, which I allegedly furnished so that I could concentrate on writing up the results of my research without interruption from students. However, my wood studio is just a wall away and as I'm sitting at my computer doing data analyses or writing papers, I get a whiff of the sawdust and the wood pile in my shop. Oh well - I'll get to those results later...

"My scientific career is reflected in the surface decorations I give my woodturnings. I study the evolution of plants and use DNA sequences to reconstruct the relationships among plants. I also study the morphology of plants in great detail to find characters to use in these efforts. Some of my turnings have floral or other botanical motifs. Other textures and designs I carve into wood are patterns I've observed in plants (e.g. the cells of the leaf epidermis), or perhaps I'll carve a branching tree or shrub. This type of design reflects the gene trees I build in resolving the evolutionary history of a group of plants.

"Some of my designs are carved using hand gouges and others result from using a high speed rotary carver equipped with dental drill bits. Recently, I've been using a Detail Master™ woodburner to carve botanical designs. I decorate with acrylic paints and finish my turnings with either tung oil varnish or Krylon™ sprays. The woods I commonly use include European hornbeam, maple, cherry, Oregon myrtlewood, Claro walnut and redwood burl."