After 33 years of working as a marketing representative for IBM and Xerox, Les Robison decided to ditch the suit and fashion a tree.
After he retired, Robison, now 69, decided to turn his hobby of “wood turning” into a career. Like a painter to his canvas, he can look at an old discarded piece of wood and see a masterpiece. After carefully examining the slice of wood, he decides whether it will be a bowl, cup, plate or vase then proceeds to “turn” the wood. “Wood turning” begins by cutting a block of wood into the desired shape. Then the wood is worked on the lathe, molding and softening it into a smooth finished piece.
“Some of it is tricks of the trade, how to use certain tools,” Robison said. “Then there’s design. When you look at the piece of wood, what do you see?”
He receives wood from local orchards, overseas and even from eBay. Unlike typical smooth, unnatural wooden art pieces, Robison works extra hard to preserve the knots and fissures in the wood, making each piece unique. He attempts to preserve all the natural occurrences in the wood and keep its individual uniqueness intact.
“It is more artistic to show the way nature set the wood up. If it has a crack or a void, I try to highlight that,” Robison said.
He is currently working out of his workshop at Shafter Airport and has his work on display and for sale at several beauty salons, home decoration stores, framing shops and at the Bakersfield Art Association gallery at East Hills Mall. His work is priced from $40 to $250.
“I think his work is very good,” said Dennis Copenhaver, a wood carver whose own work is also on display at East Hills Mall gallery. “His work is different than mine. He’s a turner, and I’m a carver. He does a really good job.”
Besides selling his creations, Robison is a part-time instructor at BC who teaches furniture making. However, for the past semester, the class has not been active because of remodeling in the Applied Arts Building. He hopes to continue teaching at BC during the spring semester.
“My favorite part of teaching is watching the students make progress,” Robison said. ” They start out maybe being afraid of the table saw. When they are done, they are using it the way they are supposed to.”