Colin Redknap

Colin Redknap says that his superpower is making sawdust; pretty things are a by-product of that. He is a wood turner and uses a lathe and chisels to shape wood into pens, bowls and other items.

Portable artwork in the form of a pen allows others to hold and share in the natural beauty of the woods.

Redknap has been turning wood for about 10 years, mostly self-taught. “There’s a YouTube video for basically everything” he says, but he has also attended woodturning workshops. Using a lathe and turning wood was always on his list of things that would be “neat” to do, and his girlfriend convinced him to buy his first mini lathe. That little lathe lasted about three weeks before he purchased a bigger one that allows the turning of bowls and mills.

“The media that I prefer to work with is wood. The transformation of a ‘boring’ stick’ to something where the grain is highlighted, and the natural beauty shines is the reason that I turn wood. I don’t make the beauty, it’s in the wood, I just try to show it.”