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Anyone who is familiar with woodturner has enormous respect for the craft. This lengthy process can only be achieved by one that has a love for giving a tree a second life. Woodturners have a great appreciation of nature and a willingness to work in concert to create something new. Learning more about Nathan Favors you can see why he became a woodturner.
Born in Philadelphia and raised on Maryland’s eastern shore, Nathan Favors spent much of his life running his own landscaping and tree removal business with the help of his six sons. Through the years Nathan was exposed to a large variety of tree species and gained a huge amount of respect to nature and all its beauty. This also instilled in his mind a desire to find a way to preserve this beauty, not just destroy it.
In 2000, Nathan came across the opportunity to visit a woodturners’ exhibit. After witnesses this ancient art form he saw how this was a way to see his dream of transforming trees that he had grown to love into works of art that he could share with the world.
From there, Nathan embarked on a journey to master this ancient craft. Through observing methods of lathe work and through trial and error, Nathan taught himself the craft and hasn’t looked back since.
He now count himself amongst the many artist located within Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and is proud to be a featured artist in the Southern Highland Craft Guild, which showcases his work in their four galleries.
This prolific artist, works out of his home studio located in Bakersville, North Carolina and at his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Nathan’s preferred medium of woods are maple, walnut, ash, cherry, oak, Manzanita and buckeye—but he has worked with exotic woods from all over the world, among them cocobolo, bubinga, eucalyptus, mora and jarrah from Australia, Africa, and Central and South America. Nathan’s only requirement is that the wood be Burls. Burls are natural deformities of the grain on trees, caused by injury to the tree or by virus, fungus, mold growth or insect infestation. Nathan loves how Burls offer the most unique results in the woodturning process.
Most pieces are produced using a lathe, even though Nathan has carved some pieces in the past. Each piece is painstakingly sanded by hand and finished with natural oils to bring out its beauty. With woodturning, each piece is total unique and never replicated. That is the amazing beauty of the woodturning craft.
