Collection: Paula Nolan Wood Turner

PAULA NOLAN WOOD-TURNING

Paula Nolan is a self-taught wood-turner and says that she learnt everything she knows from books or magazines and the hard school of trial and error.

Paula acquired her first lathe at the end of 1998 and discovered a latent aptitude for her new craft. She was helped by her earlier training as a cabinet maker at Rycotewood College (where she was Craftsperson of her Year) and, although the course did not include wood-turning, it did help her to understand wood and how it behaves.

She is not restricted by the conventions of her craft, and customers seeing her work for the first time may feel that the term "wood-turning" is somewhat inadequate. She makes work that is so imaginative and innovative that it is not immediately recognizable as the product of a lathe. Hollow forms abound, some of them oval or elongated in shape, some assembled from more than one piece and joined by perfectly-fitting rings. Other work is decorated with hot irons or the chisel, and several different timbers can be blended into one object. Often her inlaid designs are just so perfect they almost look as if they had been painted on rather that painstakingly cut out and inserted into the tiny holes, she makes for them.

Every pot is unique and all are made with so much imagination and perfection that each one is a work of art.