Nestled on a hilltop of towering trees outside Chehalis, a woodturner extraordinaire spends his time creating intricate vessels, each containing several hundred — or more than a thousand — tiny pieces of wood.
Brent Knott turns logs, limbs, burls, planks and knots into museum-worthy pieces of art, with each bowl, urn, vase or lidded container reflecting a master’s work and a passion for wood.
He uses domestic woods such as local ash, oak, Pacific yew, fruitwoods and big leaf maples, as well as exotic woods that are readily available to purchase in the area, such as purple heart or bloodwood from South America, cocobolo from Mexico, or Gabon ebony from the forests of central Africa.
Other times, Knott and other woodworkers or acquaintances trade woods, such as a massive Northwest burl and wide pieces of holly wood currently leaning in his studio.
A former instrument technician, Knott worked 34 years at a Weyerhaeuser mill that shut down in 2006. Upon leaving the mill, a friend convinced him to buy a small lathe. After creating a few small bowls, he decided he enjoyed working with wood and bought a larger lathe. Then, applying his technical skills to his art, he designed and built a small, perfectly fitted bowl containing 36 pieces of curved wood.
He was pleased with the result.
“That little bowl just grabbed me,” Knott said, “and I knew I could do this.”
Knott’s studio is a marvel in itself. Lathes and a planer, drill press, bandsaw, vintage 1960 Sears table saw and other tools circle the large space, all connected octopus-like by ventilation hoses to a pivotal point in the ceiling as a well-planned system to collect dust.
Workbenches and cabinetry are all hand-built with tools organized for maximum efficiency.
To create a bowl or vase, Knott starts with a freehand sketch of one half of the vessel to determine its approximate height and width. He draws his own patterns or designs on graph paper so that rich dark colors can offset lighter shades of wood. Then, he replicates the shape, adjusts the curve, determines the thickness of the walls and decides how many layers or rings it should contain and the height of each. Often, the individual rings have a height ranging from one-eighth to one half inch.
In considering the size of the pieces he would like each ring to have, he multiplies each ring by its tangent, and by caliper calibration and woodturner magic, he produces a chart showing exact measurements for the height, width, and curves of each tiny piece of wood.
When all the pieces have been cut and placed in separate bins, segmented construction begins. A semi-floating flat base is created as the starting point, to add flexibility as wood can later shift microscopically. Knott explained that even after wood is cut, it never stops moving and can still expand laterally.
Each assembled ring is fastened with wood glue and clamped in place. Sometimes, Knott fills designs with green serpentine or other stones, which are pulverized, blended with glue and meticulously applied in thin layers. Upon completion, he sands each vessel several times and lacquers to a shiny soft finish. He has created about 1,000 pieces during the past 15 years.
Over the past few years, Knott has also turned toward power carving. Carved bowls and vases on his studio shelves feature leaves that are barely touching and other cut-outs that appear to have conquered gravity.
Standing outside his studio, Knott admired the view and reminisced about a few 35-mile hikes he’s taken and the beauty of the California redwoods. Taking in the stands of trees and distant vistas, he mentioned the honey color of cut yew, that Garry oak is the only native oak in the Northwest, and how the region’s madrone with its fine straight grain and swirling burl patterns is his favorite hardwood.
“When madrone is cut, it has a warm reddish color, almost like cedar,” Knott said. “And when you turn it, it smells just like someone is brewing tea.”
The vibrant colors and delicate textures of Knott’s works are sought by collectors and can be seen at The Rectangle Gallery in downtown Centralia and during May at the Gallery 505 in downtown Toledo. He has been a member of ARTrails of Southwest Washington for four years and opens his home studio as part of the regional art tours each September. For the past 15 years, Knott has also been a member of The Woodturners of Olympia and of The American Association of Woodturners.
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Chronicle correspondent Lyn Craig, a lover of arts and culture, lives near Toledo.
