Andy Byrne

Neal DeVore started wood turning on a lathe as a hobby in the early 90's in his garage. He has been producing his work professionally since 1996, and has produced over 4000 pieces since that time. He enjoys the creative process of turning and working with different woods. Each piece is a new challenge and sometimes the individual characteristics of a piece of wood dictate the final result of the finished item. The majority of his wood is obtained from sources who are reclaiming old stumps or dead or dying timber. Most of the woods are from northern California and are Neal's way of recycling our natural resources that otherwise would be burned or thrown away.

The majority of his pieces are sculptural in nature, utilizing the outer natural edge of the tree for spectacular effects. A great emphasis is placed on utilization of either burl or highly figured woods. Much of Neal's work is in natural edge redwood burl and maple burl along with some buckeye and walnut burl. The scope of his work includes everything from functional, large highly figured salad bowls, platters and coffee table bowls to pepper and salt grinders. He also produces a line of burl or natural edge wine coasters and wine stoppers. Also included are large burl wall sculptures ranging up to 30 inches in diameter. But what he particularly loves to make are his "natural edge" bowls or as Neal says, "Nature makes the sculptural edge, I just hollow out around it."