Wes Jones
Lawrenceville, GA
www.gawoodturner.org/ImageGallery/
Wes Jones lives in Lawrenceville, Georgia and has been a woodturner for over 35 years. Wes retired in 2001 after a 31-year career as a fiber optic design engineer with Lucent Technologies and Bell Laboratories. He now works full-time as a woodturning artist specializing in large decorative pieces, such as bowls, hollowforms, and vases. He is most well known for his large hollowform creations made from native trees. His pieces can be found in private collections throughout the country and have been displayed at the Reinhardt College Museum of Art, the Georgia National Fair, the John C. Campbell Folk School Woodturning Studio, and at various art shows and woodturning symposiums. His work is available in a number of fine art galleries in the state.
Wes is very active in promoting the development of woodturning art and furthering woodturning education. Wes is a frequent woodturning demonstrator at various woodturning clubs and commercial venues. He periodically teaches woodturning courses at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina and at the Dogwood Institute in Alpharetta, Georgia as well as giving private woodturning instruction at his studio.
Wes is a member of the American Association of Woodturners and is very active in three of the AAW chapter woodturning clubs in Georgia. He is a past President of the Georgia Association of Woodturners in Atlanta and is a past Vice-President of the Peach State Woodturners in Oxford, Georgia. He has also served as the Treasurer and Newsletter Editor for the Chattahoochee Woodturners in Gainesville, GA. He is currently the Newsletter Editor for the Georgia Association of Woodturners and the Vice-President and AAW Liaison for The Chattahoochee Woodturners.
Wes has studied with many well known woodturning artists, including Willard Baxter, Bobby Clemons, Doug Barnes, and John Roberts at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. He has also studied with Todd Hoyer at the Appalachian Center for Craft and with David Ellsworth at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee. Recently, he has participated in workshops with Al Stirt, Stuart Mortimer, and Graeme Priddle.
Wes works primarily with woods indigenous to the Southeast. He uses trees that have fallen victim to disease, old age, or encroaching development and are destined for the landfill or to be burned, turning them instead into objects of beauty. Rather than working only with clear sections of the tree, he takes advantage of wild woodgrain, discolorations, insect damage, bark inclusions, and other natural defects to emphasize the unique characteristics of each piece and reveal the natural beauty of the wood that lies within.
Wes’ work is extremely varied. Every piece is unique and markedly different from the ones he has made before. To enhance the woodgrain of his turned pieces, he often uses pyrography, carving, colored dyes, or the inclusion of other materials such as glass or metals. Depending on the piece of wood and its inherent woodgrain, the finished product may be very simple and rely on its shape and execution for its beauty. Or it may be embellished with surface decoration into a work of art with the actual woodturning being merely the starting point of the finished piece.
To see other pieces of woodturned art, contact him at wwjones@comcast.net .
