About Me: My name is Mark Kauder, and I live in the small town of Phenix City, Alabama.  Phenix City is a little town on the East Central Alabama border, just across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia where my day job is. Columbus is about 90 miles south of Atlanta. I retired here from the U.S. Army in 1995, and now work as a computer network server engineer for the parent company that makes Char-Broil Grills and Zebco Fishing Rods and Reels.

   

    I started woodworking slowly, beginning with home repairs after my Army retirement. I then began doing some furniture building while assembling a shop of tools in 1998. While in Atlanta, I saw a woodturning demonstration, and that started the wheels turning. About a year later, I bought a small Jet Mini Lathe to turn pens for Christmas presents. Not long after, I turned my first bowl, and from that point on all other woodturning and woodworking took a back seat.

   

    Like most people, I started turning wood that I found locally. But I soon became bored with the Pine, Oak and Sweetgum around here and looked for alternatives. I happened to see an article on segmented turning. It gave me the opportunity to use kiln dried wood types that were not available around here, and the rest, as they say is history.

   

    I fell in love with segmented turning. It gives me lots of options, and no two bowls are the same. I don’t have any insightful “Artist Statement”. I just try to make bowls with attractive shapes, using nice combinations of wood and design features that do not overpower the shape.

   

    Lastly, I try to apply the best finish I can. I hope you enjoy my work.

Mark Kauder will be our guest artist here at the gallery:

  Saturday August 30th, 2008  11 AM to 4 PM

Please try to come meet Mark as he shares about his incredible segmented forms and awesome finishes!