Interview with artist Gene Sparling
Gene Sparling’s love of the outdoors comes through loud and clear in his remarkable turned wood vessels. For Gene, the process is mediative and sometimes therapeutic. His vessels and sculptures are true to the form from which they were born. When he is not in his workshop/studio, Gene will likely be found hiking the Ozark Highland and Ouachita Trails and carrying on his recognized conservation efforts. Gene’s work can be found at Justus Fine Art Gallery in Hot Springs Arkansas and at his studio website genesparling.com. (Profile photo by F.T. Eyre. All other photos are by George Chambers unless otherwise noted.)
AAS: Gene, you’ve spent most of your life in the Ouachita Mountains near the Hot Springs area. What is it about that part of the state that inspires you?
GS: The abundance of wild habitat. A landscape where forests and what we call mountains, which are really more hills, are widespread. I call it Paradise. There is abundant water in creeks and rivers and lakes, National forests. For those that aren’t familiar with it, the nearest town, Hot Springs has a National Park, forests and mountains, in the heart of the downtown. It’s a beautiful little resort town with a wonderful arts community. I live outside of town, in a house I built in the woods, on the banks of a creek, when I was a young man. I manage the surrounding property as my own private nature preserve. I have miles of trails with mountains, springs, creeks, meadows and abundant wildlife, right out my back door. Plus, it provides the raw material for my art work. Art makes my life richer, but nature has always been what inspires me.
AAS: How did you discover your love and talent for turning wood?
GS: I have spent much of my life pursuing my passions and interests. Or as Joseph Campbell, phrased it, following my bliss. I’ve never had a standard career or profession, never wanted one. Something catches my interest and I tend to throw myself into learning and teaching myself all I can about the subject, sometimes with a business or profit angle, because we all have to make a living, but often it springs from my interest in wild landscapes and traveling through them-from most of the homebuilding trades, buying and selling land, horsepacking, horseshoeing, mushroom cultivation, kayaking, whale watching, backpacking, it’s a long and eclectic list. And of course, my absolute best and most favorite pleasure and purpose was being a Dad. It still is, though I’m less needed, now than before, and that’s a good thing too!
“The esthetic that most appeals to me is usually simple, gracefully flowing curves and usually smoothed and polished to best show the beautifully intricate grain and color of the wood.”
I first came to art and then woodturning at a period when I decided it was time to rearrange and remake my life. I had always found pleasure in making and designing things and I had a lot of knowledge in woodworking and in trees and forests. I vowed I would just go into my shop and try to make interesting and appealing things. I began to make sculpture from wood I found on my farm. It was a bold move for me and took a lot of courage, not having any training or education in art, nor any serious expectation from myself or anyone else that I could ever be an “artist”, it felt like a very vulnerable place to put myself. One of the hardest things I have done was fight with myself to overcome the self-doubt when I first began making sculpture. There were times, when I was working on my early sculptures, I felt like the biggest idiot, fool around. It was hard to push through that, but I am kind of fearless when it comes to risking embarrassment to do what I want to do. Fortunately, it all worked out wonderfully, my work was admired and appreciated, and I found great satisfaction in that as well as in the making or the process. I was also surprised and so grateful to be very warmly welcomed by the art community in Hot Springs and Arkansas. As if they all just said, “come on in Gene, we love your work, you’re one of us now”, they really made me feel accepted and valued and I so appreciate that.
Through my interest in sculpture, I became aware of woodturning as an art form. Earlier a friend had described Robin Horn to me as a “woodturning artist”, which was the first time I had ever heard the term or knew the field existed. I had made candle sticks as a child on my Dad’s lathe but had never been aware of it as an artistic medium. As well as Robin’s work, the work of David Ellsworth was very interesting and inspiring to me.
“One of the hardest things I have done was fight with myself to overcome the self-doubt when I first began making sculpture.”
AAS: You say your work draws upon the simple forms found in nature. How does a piece of wood ‘speak’ to you?
“If you get the curves and form just right on a piece, people will be drawn to it like a magnet, wanting to hold and stroke it.”
GS: I am intrigued and fascinated by the intuitive reactions we all have to very simple curves and shapes. If you get the curves and form just right on a piece, people will be drawn to it like a magnet, wanting to hold and stroke it. Get it not quite right and even though a very similar form, the piece won’t draw that reaction. I love seeing people swoon over a simple vase, pot or bowl form, even if they don’t know or understand why they are so drawn to it. I call that power to evoke such strong reaction and attraction, “magic”. Through studying and learning and practicing I have learned how to create such magic some of the time, with some degree of regularity, but even now I can’t produce it at will, anytime. It is something you strive for and work toward, but it comes from “finding flow”, from intuition.
I never set out or designed to have a certain “style”. It wasn’t until I had made a room full of pieces that I realized that I did have a style! And this was it! I just make what I feel like or sometimes what the wood suggests to me. The esthetic that most appeals to me is usually simple, gracefully flowing curves and usually smoothed and polished to best show the beautifully intricate grain and color of the wood.
AAS: Would you talk about the processes you go through to reach the final vessel form? You have said it is almost a meditation for you.
GS: Most of my wood comes from my farm in the Ouachita mountains, but I also use wood I find in other places around the state. Now that I am known for this, people regularly contact me with wood to share. It’s a wonderful thing and I get some beautiful wood this way. I cut out a segment of the trunk, then usually I split that segment in half, lengthwise. That is to eliminate the pith or center of the tree trunk, which inclines a piece to crack if it is left in the piece. I can then make a piece out of each half. I prefer to turn wood “green” which generally means not cured or dried. A piece turned from green wood will “move” after it is completed, shrinking, twisting and changing shape slightly, which fits right in with my naturalistic forms.
Gene turning a piece of spalted pecan.
After taking a section from the tree I will then often cut out the rough shape, often a circle or oval form, on the bandsaw. Then I attach it to the lathe and shape the outside of the piece, forming a tenon on the bottom which I then use to grab with a scroll chuck that screws to the lathe. I then turn the piece around and hollow out the inside of the piece to match the form of the outside I created. After sanding, inside and out, and that generally means every last little scratch or tool mark. I should note here, that though I am not particularly a perfectionist in most areas of my life, for some reason with my art work, I am driven to make it as near to perfect as I can. I believe strongly that doing the best quality of work is very important. Then I sign my name on the bottom with a wood burner and drop it in a bucket of tung oil, where it will soak for between 2 to 48 hours, depending upon the wood. After it comes out of the oil the piece will then sit for 2 to 4 or 6 months, while the wood dries thoroughly and the tung oil cures completely. I love a tung oil finish, it takes a lot of time and patience, but again in pursuit of quality it is worth it. A piece finished in tung oil looks like wood and feels like wood. After this, the piece is re-sanded, polished, buffed and waxed. Then it is complete and ready for sale or display.
Whole Earth, Walnut, 12”h x 27”l x 20”w
AAS: You have created some spectacular works in walnut – Whole Earth for example. Would you talk about those pieces?
GS: These pieces were made from a giant, old walnut tree that grew on the banks of the Saline river for over a hundred years. The owner gave it to me after it died because he wanted to see something worthwhile done with it. These pieces were my attempt to make something dramatic that would push the limits of my skills and my equipment. The section of tree that I made Whole Earth from, weighed over 300 pounds when I put it on my lathe. It was a tense and nerve-wracking process to make it, with the most difficult part being the final cuts, so that success was not assured until it was completed.
As in much of my work, the edges of these pieces are all “natural” meaning that the rim and sides are not something I have carved and shaped but are where the bark was on the tree. Most of my work is natural edge. The rims and edges of the piece are shaped by how I orient the piece I take from the tree.
Rebound, Walnut, 12”h x 27”l x 21”w
Tempest, bleached American Holly, 8.5”h x 8.5”d
AAS: The vessels you’ve created in bleached holly are marvelous. I have to wonder, how are they possible?
GS: I have bleached these pieces to give the wood that “porcelain” or bone white look. It’s funny how many people just cannot except that they are wood until they touch them. Holly is a very white wood already and the bleaching process, using commercial bleaching compounds, makes it even whiter.
Pot, Spalted Pecan, 6”h x 6”d
AAS: Your spalted vessels are some of my favorites. Just what is spalted wood and where do you find it?
Vessel, Spalted Maple, 10”h x 13”w x 8”d
GS: Spalting is caused by decay organisms, mostly fungi and molds, that naturally invade or are introduced, to wood after it dies. When different colonies of fungi are invading and eating wood, if they come in contact with one another they will make a black line, called a margin line, to try and fence off or divide their section of wood. When I artificially introduce these decay organisms, I simultaneously introduce hundreds of colonies which has them all fighting and competing for wood at the same time. This results in a riot of these black margin lines and makes a very striking dramatic look in the wood. I love spalted wood myself and enjoy spalting wood. The process usually takes 2 to 6 months and you never really know what you’re going to get until you cut into it. It like opening a gift to see what nature has painted and drawn in the wood.
Encounter 3, Ash, 35”h x 25”w x 19”d
AAS: Gene you have also created some lovely sculptures. Are these all carved?
GS: Yes, these are roughed out with a chainsaw, then with a chainsaw circlet on a mini grinder, then I have various smoothing and sanding tools and techniques I use to finish them. One of the most important and hardest steps is using a horse rasp to smooth the curves so that they blend and flow together, a throwback from my days as a farrier.
AAS: If someone is interested in wood turning, do you offer classes or workshops?
GS: Yes, I do private instruction in my shop and am always happy to give advice or answer questions to folks wanting to learn the craft. I used to teach classes at the Arkansas Craft School in Mountain View, and they still have excellent courses and instructors for those wanting to learn. There are also woodturning clubs almost everywhere and they are great resources for anyone wanting to learn. I belong to the Central Arkansas Woodturners Club, (centralarwoodturners.org), and it’s a great bunch of folks that are all happy to share their knowledge and help people that want to learn.
AAS: Last month you were featured in an Arkansas Heritage Tour video on KATV. That must have been a lot of fun. In it you talked about being selected to create the 2021 Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award cup. What an honor!
Venturi Vase, Cherry, 10”h x 5”d, 2021 Governor’s Arts Award Cup (photo courtesy of the artist)
GS: Yes, I viewed it as an honor to be asked to make the awards, particularly after reviewing the makers of the previous awards. It was a challenge because they need quite a few of them, with some consistency between them, and I mostly make one-of-a-kind pieces.
The design I came up with it a very simple vase form with a narrow waist, flared top and bottom and a natural top edge. I made them from a large cherry tree from my farm that blew down in a line of storms on Easter Sunday of 2020. Making them from a freshly cut tree allows a distinct difference in color between the sapwood, which is very light, and the heartwood which is a rich red. They are thin walled and hollow with no bottom to allow the woods to move without cracking. I call them Venturi Vases.
Gene in his studio workshop. (photo courtesy of Aaron Brewer)
