There is a long-running debate about what is art and what is craft. Cynical people often answer 'The price tag!', but the finest works of a master craftsman or woman often cross over from being craft into being art. A good example are the works of Pennsylvania master Woodturner and Bowlmaker Nathan Favors.
Favors was born in Philadelphia in 1941 and for nearly 40 years worked as a precision machinist at the Fisher-Porter Company of Warminster making parts for medical instruments.
Then late in his career he became interested in working with wood and this has led to a whole second career creating bowls, vessels, furniture and sculptures in a range of native American woods including Norwalk Island Pine, Redwood, Walnut, Cherry. Pear, Ash, Honey Locust and Sycamore.
Nathan is now widely known through the American Association of Woodturners and we're lucky to have nine very fine examples of his wood art on display at the gallery at present. Nathan works the material right to the limits and also manipulates the special characteristics of each piece into the final design. While other people might see these as 'imperfections', for Nathan they represent something deep in the character of the materials.
You can see more images of Nathan's work at our online gallery store.
