Kelly Dunn

From the Artist

Multi-award winning wood lathe artist Kelly Dunn lives on the north end of the Big Island of Hawaii. Kelly specializes in wood grown on the Big Island, and he creates bowls, hollow vessels and art forms full-time.

As "Departures Magazine" (the American Express Platinum Card Member's publication) in its Holiday Issue wrote . . "It is difficult to imagine wood turnings more bewitching than the translucent treasures (Kelly) Dunn patiently crafts in Hawi, on the Big island of Hawaii."

Kelly Dunn then turns the aged timber on the lathe to a wall thickness of about an inch, then he kiln dries it. The "blanks" are coated on one side with a wax emulsion to discourage cracking, re-worked on the lathe until they are almost eggshell-thin, and finally submerged for up to two weeks in a bath of oil and resin that Dunn himself developed. It is this final touch that yields bowls that seem to incadesence with their own inner light.

Kelly turns on a custom-built lathe. He turns to a thickness of approximately 3/16ths on an inch. His lathe will turn up to a 36" in diameter piece of wood.

Kelly Dunn says of himself, “I have an intense curiosity as to the workings of the universe and the mechanical and spiritual wherewithal that makes it work. I always hope to grow in my art as the evolution of my talent allows me.”