Steve Noggle | Woodworking
Morganton, NC
A lifelong love of wood and trees led to training as a forester, a career in the furniture industry and finally to woodturning. Uncloaking the beauty of the wood grain and forming a shape worthy of the tree it comes from are the goals for each piece created. The hardwoods I use are both local and exotic, straight grained and figured. All my work is lathe-turned using local domestic hardwoods. Favorite local woods include maple, cherry and walnut. I also work with exotic burl wood from Australia, Africa and South America. I often use the natural edge of the burl, bark included, for the open edge of the finished piece. Many of the hollow forms as well as the natural-edge pieces often have openings and voids created by insects or are figured with patterns created by spalting fungi or ambrosia beetles. The choices I make while developing the shape of each piece come from the patterns revealed inside the wood itself along with the form that flows from carving.