"More than ever, we need to let art in many forms into our lives."— M I K E S H U L E R figured it out on my own. I didn’t really have anybody to ask, didn’t know anything about woodturning, didn’t know what a lathe was. I just realized one day that if I could make it spin, I could cut it while it went around. I took out my pocket knife and started cutting.” While in his 20s, Shuler made significant career strides after a trip through Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. He drank up the influences, he recalls, from architecture and art, all the way across the continents. By his mid-30s, he found the track he’s on now. “The lathe work was sort of a lifetime love by that time. It was really going to be my vehicle.” The open vessel forms Shuler turns out today express the body of his work, he says. The forms are grouped in two categories: “segmented” and “organica.” The segmented vessels are made of hundreds or thousands of slender, precisely cut, exotic hardwoods that form intricate patterns. All colors are the natural hues of the species. The organica vessels are formed from natural objects such as pinecones, protea or banksias blossoms, thistles, artichokes and other vegetative forms. “It’s a totally subtractive process,” Shuler explains. “I call it nature’s segmentation. I don’t even consider it my art, although people reject that idea. … I’m just drawing from nature.” Shuler’s long days are a tribute to his extraordinary work ethic and self-discipline. He stopped watching TV 16 years ago. “I think people need to know that if they want to expand their life in one direction, they need to shrink it in another.” T R A N S F O R M AT I V E A R T For the record, he does get outdoors once in a while, body surfing, touring local museums with his wife and doing about five or six art shows a year. But as anyone can surmise within minutes of meeting him, Shuler’s work is a life fulfillment, and it is likely remain just that. Sending something beautiful into the world often has a profound personal effect on others, as he’s witnessed from the response to his own outpouring. Those experiences underpin his philosophy. “More than ever,” he says, “we need to let art in many forms into our lives.” For more information, visit Mike Shuler: Contemporary Fine Art Objects & Segmented Wood Vessels, mikeshuler.com n Mike Shuler, Birdseye Maple Bowl, exterior illuminated view, 5 in. diameter, 1 ½ in. high. Above: Zebrawood Bowl, 12 in. diameter x 5 in. high 80 South Bay Accent
South Bay Accent - AugSep 2016
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