Rick has lived in Monument, CO for nearly 35 years and about 7 years ago he took an interest in working on the wood Lathe. He starting by making functional bowls and most recently began to add lids and gem stones to the pieces. He continues to also make functional pieces, but now the interest has changed again to exotic and non-local woods. Making an annual trip each year to Arizona and connecting with local tree trimming companies has kept Rick well supplied with a good selection of many different woods. Having now turned nearly 30 different types of wood, the pleasure comes from unwrapping the bark and letting Mother Nature show what is hiding under the skin of what looks like a simple old log. He will look at a log sometimes for months before he is finally ready to see what the soul will look like. The tooling and the shapes just become part of that process to expose the soul of the log. Adding the lids, inlays, and gems just adds to the bling/beauty that is already exposed after the piece is turned. The pleasure of turning each piece and completing the entire work of art is like bonding two souls to create a new personality and a new friendship.