Woodturner refuses to separate beauty and utility
Thomas R. Irven’s proverbial 15 minutes of fame has lasted more than six years and is still going strong. The wood artist was living in Houston, Texas, and donated a wooden bowl for a gallery’s silent-auction event for Empty Bowls — an international grassroots movement of craftspeople that raises money for food-related charities. (There’s a local version in Flat Rock.)
The Houston Public Media TV station — affiliated with PBS — made a video of Irven turning wood and talking about his craft. “The video was nominated for a regional Emmy award,” he says, “and I still hear from people who see it on TV when they replay it.”
But Irven was turning wood long before the cameras turned on. In middle school, he made a 12-sided clock out of walnut. “I was so excited, and it was so much fun,” he recalls. “Then I helped my father remodel the basement and add on a garage when I was in high school, but didn’t really get back into woodworking until I finished my Masters Degree in Occupational Education.”
Right out of college, he got a job in a cabinet shop, and after getting a teaching certificate, he taught middle- and high-school Industrial Technology, along with woodworking and drafting in public and private schools.
He also made furniture and did furniture-repair work, which evolved into a full-time occupation. “But a lot of people wanted me to make larger pieces, like built-ins,” he says. These required wooden veneers constructed over the top of “MDF” (medium density fiberboard). Heavy, awkward MDF sheets can weigh more than 100 pounds, and the work took a toll. “Around 1998, I decided to go back to woodturning full time, and traveled all around doing American Craft Council shows,” says Irven.
When his wife retired, the couple decided they were long overdue for a change of scenery. “We both grew up in the flat farmland of Indiana, and then lived in flat Texas.” Most of Texas doesn’t have four distinct seasons, either. So they arrived in Western North Carolina five years ago. In 2021, Irven was accepted into the prestigious Southern Highland Craft Guild.
He loves to work with burls — the bulbous deformities that grow as scars on trees, typically discarded by carpenters. “I like any burls,” he says. “Maple burl is nice, and mesquite burl is very dense, so when it dries out it doesn’t swell or twist the way some woods do.” To dry his wood, he uses a homemade kiln — “an old fridge with a light bulb in it,” he jokes.
His turned sculptures often feature acorn shapes, sometimes with various sizes strung together. “Growing up my grandfather had a huge white-oak tree, and I’d play with the acorns, and that stuck with me.” He also makes containers shaped like pears and eggplants. A signature feature of his “boxes” (which are not necessarily square like a traditional box) is that they have secure lids that screw on and off.
Although his work is gracefully sculptural and designed as visual art, it also retains a functional aspect — traced back to Irven’s earliest endeavors. “Everything I made when I started was functional, and I had a hard time making sculptural pieces that just sit there and don’t do anything.”
Most of them are around 17 inches tall with a slightly off-center look that gives them a sense of movement and energy in space. “I make them so they are reflections of me,” says the artist, humorously. “I’ll never be straight up and down — I’ll always be a little off balance.”
Thomas Irven, Waynesville, trirven@sbcglobal.net or trirven@icloud.com. The artist will participate as a guest at the 7th Annual Beaverdam Studio Tour in North Asheville happening Saturday, Oct. 26, 10am-5pm, and Sunday, Oct. 27, 10am-4pm; find a map and more information at beaverdamstudiotour.com. The artist’s work is represented by Gallery of the Mountains at the Grove Park Inn (290 Macon Ave., Asheville, galleryofthemountains.com) and at the Folk Art Center, Milemarker 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway (administered by the Southern Highland Craft Guild). Irven will participate in the Guild’s 77th Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands (Harrah’s Cherokee Center-Asheville, 87 Haywood St.) happening Thursday, Oct. 17 through Sunday, Oct. 20, 10am-5pm, southernhighlandguild.org. To view the Emmy-nominated video of Irven in action, check out “Woodworking Wonder Thomas Irven” on YouTube.