Ron Kent is an artist who is constantly challenging preconceptions by exploring new mediums and approaches. While he is known to many as a master craftsman in the realm of wood art, with work in leading museums from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to The Louvre, he has never accepted that he should be limited to any particular medium, process or form.

The discovery of woodturning came about when his wife Myra gave him a $35.00 toy lathe for Christmas in 1975. Not knowing what to make of the gift, but not wanting his wife to feel that he wasn't pleased with it, he walked down to the beach and found a piece of driftwood. Fitting it on the lathe, he turned a form from it with a sharpened screwdriver. It was a humble beginning, but Kent was intrigued. The toy lathe fell apart while Kent was exploring its potential and he bought a larger one… only to be followed by a progression of larger and more professional models.

Kent came to concentrate on creating bowls in Norfolk Island pine, a wood that offered striking knot patterns and highly figured wood that spalted in beautiful abstract patterns. He also brought something new to the pedestal: light. Ron Kent's bowls, thinly turned and oiled, glowed under gallery lighting. The effect was quite unlike what anyone else was doing.

Norfolk Island pine is a timber that grows throughout the South Pacific, allegedly planted to provide a ready material for itinerant sailors. Ron Kent's translucent bowls are turned over a period of time, so that they can be slowly taken down to the required thinness. Repeated oiling and sandings are an important part of the process, as the original moisture in the wood is displaced with the oils, providing the translucence. Like many of his contemporaries, Kent is entirely self-taught and this has led to several technically unorthodox approaches to turning on the lathe. Some of his aesthetic approaches are different as well, as he prefers to turn the bowls so that they are at least slightly and often greatly off-center, providing patterns considerably different than what most woodturners strive for.

Kent's recent experiments in mass allow him to further rebel against the limitations that success brings. In other recent bowl and platter forms, the grain and pattern of the wood are boldly covered with paint. Like others who have explored similar approaches, the artist is no doubt courting criticism. Just as it was experimentation that brought the artist critical acclaim, it is experimentation that will free him to follow his muse. With Ron Kent, one never knows where that might lead.

PERMANENT MUSEUM AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

· the louvre
· the metropolitan museum of art
· the vatican
· the white house
· smithsonian institution, renwick gallery
· cooper-hewitt national design museum
· museum of art and design, new york
· museum of fine arts, boston
· yale university art gallery
· mint museum of art + design, charlotte
· the detroit institute of arts
· los angeles county museum of art
· 21st century museum of contemporary art, kanazawa, japan
· det danske kunstindustrimusee, copenhagen
· hawke's bay cultural trust, new Zealand
· arizona state university
· honolulu academy of arts
· the contemporary museum, Honolulu
· hawaii state foundation for culture and the arts
· dr.thomas klestil, president, republic of austria
· emperor akihito of japan
· president bill clinton
· president george bush
· pope john paul II
· crown prince hitachi of japan
· sultan iskandar of johor, agong of malaysia
· president ronald reagan
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