Baba's Bowlworks

The wood

All these bowls are made from Seattle urban necessary tree removal salvage or from recycled lumber. For example, the mahogany was from canned food crates from SE Asia. Most are from older trees that fall or are threatening to.

I am so grateful to the tree services for leaving me choice cuts when they remove trees. They have shown great sensitivity to wanting the wood to go to a higher purpose than firewood, and know so much about the trees and which wood I might do something with.

When I cut the trees up for bowl blanks, I try to guess what is going on inside there that might come out in an interesting way in a bowl.

Sometimes it is so surprising when I see the bowl that finds it's way out through my cuts on the spinning wood.

The finish is tung oil that is oil sanded into the wood and hand rubbed over and over. I mean Over and Over. There is no shortcut to a nice finish that is safe. All these bowls are food safe. Just wipe them out and keep oiled with any food safe oil such as tung or walnut, lemon or orange.