"Ocean Harmony"

A surfer who turns wood or a wood turner who surfs.
This is who I am.
I have been a surfer for more than twenty-seven years. A wood turner for thirteen. I did not start to turn wood until I moved from California to Maui Hawaii in 1985. I moved to Hawaii to surf.

The first pieces of high quality turned wood that I saw and admired in Hawaii were created from two masters, Ron Kent and Jack Straka. They were mostly bowl forms. I bought a lathe and gave it a shot. Six years later I was a "professional". In 1996 I was pretty much frustrated with turning. It seemed that all of the good ideals were already taken. I had been experimenting with some carving on my turnings. So I decided to do what I wanted to do, regardless if other people liked what I was doing.
If the buying public didn't like what I was doing I knew it was time to hang up the turning tools and to move on to something more profitable.

Thank god! The new work was well received.

I did not really think of designs when I was creating. I was just doing it. It was other people who first noticed that my work looked like something that came from the ocean, a seashell, a wave, or a sea creature. Still I did not pursue this way of thinking I just did what I did.

At this time I started to develop severe pain in my arms from turning and carving. Surfing helped relieve the pain, I assumed that it stretched the muscles in my arms. Other people thought that I just wanted to surf. I have to admitthat both accounts are true.

One day as I was surfing, I was in the water waiting for the next wave. I started thinking about my artwork. I began to understand the relationship to surfing and the environment that I lived in, and how it related to my work. The ocean and the beach have always been my sanctuary. Good times or bad, I could always find peace at the beach. My woodworking is my other sanctuary. I can go into my studio and get totally absorbed in my work and be at peace with myself. Now that I am more mature in my art I feel privileged that I can bring together my personal life with my art life and to live in complete harmony. One sanctuary. As I look at the curves of my work I can see my self sliding down a wave, looking at how the lip of the vessel folds over reminds me of the lip of the wave curling over me. If you hold the piece up to your ear, you can almost hear the roar of the sea.

Life is good, if you enjoy what you are doing. My life is good.

Aloha,
Derek Bencomo

©2001 Derek Bencomo
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