Dawn Redwood Bowl

My wife has a brother and his family who live in Charlottesville. They have always been wonderful hosts to us as we traveled back and forth from the midwest (Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky) to my family farm outside of Richmond, Virginia. They live outside of Charlottesville near the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains.

Walks in the woods and on the Miller School property nearby are a regular feature of visits there and one Thanksgiving morning we walked over to the school property. I noticed a logging truck with some large timbers on it.

Naturally I investigated as my wood magnet drew me closer without effort. I saw several species including one that I thought was bald cypress. It really looked nice and I thought I would really like to have a chunk of that. However, it was already loaded on the truck and I knew it was on the way to the sawmill.

I returned to Celebrate Christmas there and found that the wood had just been dumped in the woods not more than 500 feet from my brother-in-law’s house. I hauled out my ever present traveling companion, the Sthil 066, the second largest chain saw that the Sthil corporation makes, and cut off a slab.

I had always wondered why bald cypress when it grows in its natural habitat puts out these large nodes from the root that stick out above the swampy water but when grown on dry land it does not. I later learned that there is another tree called the Dawn Redwood which is not a swamp dweller and while it looks like cypress, it is not and does not put up nodes from the roots

This bowl in the picture is dawn redwood I think. The wood is somewhat aromatic and is almost snow white. It was probably planted at the Miller School as an exotic species donated by some knowledgeable faculty member or alumnus. That explains why something that looks like bald cypress but is not came to be growing in an area that is not in its native range.

I finished this bowl with just wax as I did not want it to yellow and darken with an oil finish. It represents a triumph of aesthetics over practicality. The in sloping rim draws you into the bowl to contemplate the design made by the contrasting early and late wood of each annual ring when cut in different geometric planes.