By Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi / Special to the Star-Advertiser
When David Louie looks at a log, he envisions bowls, plates, vases — the beauty he knows is hidden beneath the bark.
"Often, the wood’s grain and natural shape will dictate what I make from it," said Louie, 61, who enjoys wood turning when he’s not providing legal counsel to state government leaders and departments as Hawaii’s attorney general, or overseeing his agency’s 750 employees.
He finds his hobby "a great change of pace," contrasting the solitary, meditative pursuit with the often hectic and complicated preparation required for court cases that involve strict protocols and the coordination of lawyers, investigators and witnesses.
"It’s creative, left-brain, thinking versus analytical, right-brain, thinking," Louie said.
With both of his children, Ryan, 24, and Jenna, 21, in college, and with the encouragement of his wife, Johanna, Louie has no qualms about spending up to 12 hours a day on weekends working on wood projects. His skills have progressed in just a few short years to the point where three of his pieces are on display at Hawaii’s Woodshow, Na La‘au o Hawai‘i, which runs today through Sept. 15 at the Honolulu Museum of Art School at Linekona.
Louie’s passion for wood turning was ignited in 2009 after he enrolled in a one-day class at Woodcraft in Kalihi. "I had so much fun making a modest little bowl at that class, I wanted to do more," he said. "I like identifying the characteristics of a piece of wood, addressing the flaws it might have, such as knots, cracks and rotted spots, and executing a design concept that’s aesthetically pleasing."
He converted part of the basement of his Wilhelmina Rise home into a workshop and started acquiring tools — about 75 to date, and counting. Each serves a different purpose. Some are used to hack large chunks of wood to manageable sizes, others to do rough shaping, and still others to make fine cuts and smooth curves and surfaces.
"You can never have too many tools. For me, they seem to multiply like rabbits," Louie said.
"When you’re working with heavy wood mounted on rapidly spinning machinery, you have to concentrate. There have been times when large pieces have flown off my lathe, when the lathe itself has started moving because the wood on it wasn’t balanced properly, and when the wood gets banged around because it’s set at an improper angle. Luckily, I haven’t had any serious mishaps."
Louie is a member of Honolulu Woodturners, a club of more than 100 avid craftsmen and -women that meets every other month for discussions and demonstrations. He also subscribes to woodcraft magazines and has built a personal library of books on the subject.
"Thanks to all of those resources, I’ve picked up great tips about design, working with tools, and harvesting, handling and finishing wood," Louie said. "I’ve made good friends who have been generous with advice and have helped me improve my skills and increase my enjoyment of the creative process."
FOR LOUIE, that process begins with examining a green log’s natural lines, volume and shape, and visualizing what the finished piece will look like before he makes the first cut. He then roughly shapes the wood, allowing extra thickness for shrinkage and for the adjustments he’ll have to make to compensate for "movement" — the changes in form that occur as the wood dries over the course of four to six months.
When the piece is sufficiently dry (to about 10 percent moisture content), it’s ready to be fine-tuned. Louie might fill holes with inlays of semiprecious stones such as coral, turquoise or lapis lazuli. He finishes the piece using sandpaper in progressively fine grades, then polishes it with oil, wax or both.
"Right now, I have about 40 to 50 roughly turned bowls and nested bowl sets that are drying or already dried and waiting to be worked into final form," he said. "The time it takes me to complete a piece depends on the quality of the wood and how many imperfections it has. Sometimes I have to fill holes and cracks, remove rotten areas and strengthen the wood with glue or epoxy resin. The larger the piece is and the more irregularities it has, the more time it takes to finish it."
Of all the woods Louie works with — including milo, mango, lychee and Norfolk pine — he likes koa best because of its eye-catching grains and chatoyance, the changeable color and luminescence when seen in different lights or from different angles. He obtains most of his wood through weekly email alerts from Honolulu Woodturners.
"Sometimes we hear about fallen trees; other times, tree trimmers tell us when and where they’re going to be removing trees," Louie said. "They’re happy that we’re willing to pick up trees that they otherwise would have to haul to the dump. Just about everything I work with is free salvaged wood. The exception is koa because it’s a popular wood that’s becoming increasingly hard to get."
Pieces in Hawaii’s Woodshow must be made of Hawaii-grown wood. Louie crafted one of his three entries from the stump of a koa tree that had blown down in a storm. It has an uneven natural bark edge with an interesting U-shaped "split" on one side.
Fashioned after a traditional Hawaiian umeke (bowl), Louie’s other koa entry flaunts a narrow band of lapis lazuli and an unusual cornucopia-patterned grain. For his third entry, he transformed a chunk of lychee wood with many holes into an extraordinary example of how flaws can become an art piece’s most striking feature.
"Cutting away the layers that obscure the intrinsic beauty of wood is a rewarding journey, complete with joyful surprises," Louie said. "It’s amazing and gratifying being able to preserve the essence of a tree in a beautiful, permanent form."
