Wendy La Schum, of Oregon, Wisconsin, says that she gives trees their fifth season. There's spring, summer, autumn, winter and her studio where their trunks get repurposed into artisan bowls and kitchenware to be sold at art fairs and galleries across the Dane County area, and other parts of Wisconsin.
La Schum invited Carnelian Art Gallery into her home studio earlier this week to let the gallery get an inside look at her artistic process, which starts with scraps of wood located next to her garage in her backyard.
"This is where it starts," says La Schum. "It starts with a tree that ... I know where it came from. It starts with a chainsaw. You take that chainsaw and you turn (the wood) into a turning block of some sort.
"I would fire up the lathe (a machine tool that rotates a workpiece around a central axis so a stationary cutting or shaping tool can remove material symmetrically) ... you take that piece of wood, you put it on the lathe and you turn it until its about an inch thick, at which point (the wooden piece) has to dry for about a year. Wood dries about an inch a year. You'll end up putting it back on the lathe (after a year) and hopefully it survives and doesn't crack or chip too badly. You will re-turn it so it has a second turning to get to the final thickness. From there, you're going to do a finish."
After La Schum finishes a piece, she might put a twig "topper" on it if its a bowl with a cover. A more recent experiment of La Schum's has been to top her artisan bowls with twigs from curly willow trees, and other species that have a dreamy and whimsical appearance.
"We end up doing everything from common bowls ... where they are very utilitarian and what have you," says La Schum. "Some of the stuff we refer to as a bit more funky.
"One of the things we do if we know where the tree came from is put the latitude and longitude in the bottom of the bowl. Most of (the trees) are local."
La Schum is originally from Monona, Wisconsin, where she said she can recall seeing cows across the street in her childhood. Her father worked as a mechanic and La Schum recalled enjoying working with her hands, too. That passion never left her. La Schum previously had a career in retail management, also doing mechanical work for the various stores she worked for. Upon buying her first home in Oregon, she remodeled it. That's when she discovered her love for woodworking. Now, the artist shows her works at about three shows a year.
La Schum has shown her pieces in communities like Paoli, Spring Green and others around Dane County and Wisconsin.