Asheville’s woodturning Master, Bill Wanezek

Asheville’s Woodturning Master, Bill Wanezek

Asheville’s woodturning master, Bill Wanezek is just that, a master. Bill was recently the featured artist in the regional arts and culture magazine, The Laurel of Asheville.

This came as no surprise to us since Bill’s wood turned bowls, otter letter-openers and handcrafted pen and pencil sets are some the most popular wooden gifts items that the Mountain Made gallery has to offer.

In the article Bill says, his interest in using his hands to woodworking stems from watching is father as a child in the small town of Lancaster, Wisconsin.

“Dad was a house painter by trade. I helped him with some of the ‘fix-it’ projects which were common, as our house was fairly old, and I also ‘helped’ him with painting and worked part-time for him after I turned 16.”

After attending the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and earning a degree in chemistry, Bill began a 18-year career at Rayovac as a hearing aid battery design and process engineer.

Later on he managed a German-owned steel pump manufacturing operation and ran his own machine shop until he retired in 2007.

But in retirement Bill didn’t want to rest on his laurels, so he turning his considerable talents and skills to wood turning.

He says he’d has always had a fascination with woodturning,

“…Probably from seeing turners on TV or when we visited the Amana Colonies in Iowa where I saw an old turner making table legs. I’m not sure what the attraction was, but perhaps it was just the process of taking a chunk of raw wood and making a functional or decorative piece.”

“I am very driven by getting things done, so it was pretty frustrating. That’s one big feature of a lot of woodworking, particularly woodturning. I can go from raw wood to a finished pen, bottle stopper, or chain pull in a matter of minutes.”

While it may only take Bill a few minutes to turn a chunky block of raw wood into a graceful and unique piece of art, you can easily see in his finished work, all the years of hard work and dedication it has taken for him master his woodturning craft.

We invite to drop by Mountain Made anytime, and see first-hand for yourself, some of Asheville’s Woodturning Master, Bill Wanezek beautiful bowls and wooden wine stoppers and chess sets.

Article Source/Photo Credit: The Laurel of Asheville