Finding the beauty in each piece of wood

Bellarine local Paul Barton has spent years practicing the art of turning piles of timber destined to be firewood into sculptured pieces inspired by ancient Greek and Roman pottery.

Driven by a love of timber, Barton spends his spare time woodturning, making unique and authentic vessels.

“My pieces are often only two-to-three millimeters thick, and I use the timber’s natural features like bark inclusions and rot as features on my vessels,” he said.

Barton’s woodworking skills and passions began in high school where he found he loved working with wood but never pursued it, ending up going to university to become a biologist.

 

It wasn’t until a few years after he finished university and was experimenting with a wood lathe that he started to turn again.

After picking the craft back up, he did it full time for a while, however found it was too hard to make a living from, switching to work as a landscape gardener and turning in his spare time.

Barton’s skills are mostly self-taught, spending years honing his technique, a process he said was frustrating at times.

“In the early days I used to go to demonstrations and watch people turn and then through that I went home and practiced what I saw the day before,” he said.

Similar to many crafts, the types of tools are crucial to a woodturner’s work as Barton quickly discovered, unaware of the types of chisels he needed for turning certain things.

 

“I was using the wrong chisel and it was catching, it was hard, it was difficult at the start, but once I got a rough idea of what chisels to use and how to use them, I advanced really quickly,” he said.

“The other thing that was tricky was learning how to sharpen your chisels; if your chisels aren’t sharpened properly then they don’t cut properly either.

“I think through trial and error you learn your own techniques and it helped, I think it’s helped me in the long run.”

With piles of wood at his disposal, Barton can often see what he’s going to make upon first viewing.

Other times, it will sit for six to 12 months before inspiration strikes and he knows exactly what to do with it.

Along with drawing inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman pottery and their use of form, he also likes to look at the works of other woodturners.

 

Shape and form are important to Barton when crafting his pieces, wanting them to almost look like they’re floating.

“My pieces are extremely light, when you pick them up, there’s no weight in them, I like the base to be quite small, so the actual piece looks like it’s just resting on the surface,” he said.

Unlike other woodturners, his pieces are very thin, a characteristic Barton believes makes his work stand out, along with the type of material he uses.

“I use timbers most woodturners wouldn’t even attempt to use, they would just leave it as it is either too rotten, too damaged or too hard, and I think that’s what sets me apart from a lot of other woodturners.

“The trick to turning my thin pieces is not to worry about breaking the piece. I break them quite often, because you’re on the limits.

“If you don’t worry about that then if you do break it, you break it, if you don’t worry about that, then it’s a bonus.”

 

He also has a rare process where he can turn one vessel that sits inside the other, making him one of only two people in the world who can do it.

European Timbers, English Oak and Fig wood are often Barton’s choice of materials, although he is happy to work with whatever he can get his hands on.

The majority of his wood is sourced and recycled through his landscaping work, an arborist friend or Facebook Marketplace, admitting he could never cut a tree down just for the timber.

Barton said he finds the material beautiful to work with, utilising the wood’s natural features.

“You never really know what you’re going to get, it’s not until you have a look at what’s behind that bark and cut into that and you can see what’s in there,” he said.

“I love trees as well, so if I can make something beautiful out of something that’s been cut down and was once beautiful when it was growing, then I think that’s quite a good thing to do.”

Through his work, he hopes people are able to see the beauty in what he does and in the raw materials, realising there’s more uses to timber than simply burning it.

 

Barton finds woodturning extremely therapeutic, saying that time disappears when he works.

“It’s very relaxing and I think when you’re doing it, you’re not really thinking about anything else, all you’re doing is just thinking about what you’re making and concentrating on what you’re doing,” he said.

As Barton continues woodturning into 2025, he’s starting to get into the teaching side of the skill, wanting to help new turners grow their own skills.

His pieces are available at the Barwon Heads market, held at the Barwon Heads Community Hall on the last Saturday of the month from February to November.

For more, head to his Instagram page @paulbarton_woodartist