Sam Gathje, a third-generation woodworker, with some of the 50 bowls he fashioned for this year’s Empty Bowls fundraiser, which will be held Nov. 10 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
The first Empty Bowls event in Cook County in 2006 featured handmade pottery bowls made by local schoolchildren and potters at the Grand Marais Art Colony. As this annual fundraiser for community hunger programs has grown, the bowl inventory has also grown to include pottery bowl pendants and glass dishes. Now, this year, for the first time and perhaps only year ever, the bowl sale will also feature wooden bowls, compliments of North House intern Sam Gathje.
A 2015 Luther College graduate, Gathje is a third-generation woodworker. His grandfather started a home and cabinet building business that Gathje’s father now runs. Gathje worked alongside his dad in the family business for many years, but he’d never made a wooden bowl until he took a wood turning class with Jim Sannerud at North House this April.
When Gathje learned about Cook County’s Empty Bowls fundraiser, he realized making bowls for the event would be the perfect opportunity to become more familiar with the materials and tools of wood turning and would allow him to collaborate with another Cook County organization he admires, the Grand Marais Art Colony.
“A big part of why I donated the bowls is to bring something handcrafted into people’s homes and hands,” he said.
Gathje makes each bowl with green birch wood he’s harvested from community members’ properties. After cutting the wood into blocks, he turns the bowls on an electric lathe and said he’s received a lot of guidance from Sannerud as he’s worked to fashion 50 bowls of all different sizes for Empty Bowls 2016.
In the beginning, it took Gathje a standard length workday to make two bowls. Now he can crank out 10 – 12 bowls in eight hours. After being turned, the bowls must rest and dry for two weeks before being finished with oil and milk paint, a non-toxic water-based paint that’s been used for thousands of years.
“The bowls have a lot of cool characteristics,” Gathje said.
For instance, flat spots on the bowl indicate spots where bark was removed from the wood, said Gathje. During the drying process, the bowls shrink, change shape, and unfortunately, about three in every 20 bowls turned crack and are rendered useless, at least as a bowl. It’s a process that’s been fun and informative, he said.
“There’s just something about a wooden bowl,” Gathje said. “It has a much warmer feel than a ceramic bowl.”
Gathje invites the community to participate in the project and learn more about wood-turning and milk paints by attending the Paint-a-Bowl event he’s hosting at North House on November 3 from 7 – 9 p.m.
The bowls will be available at the Empty Bowls event at Bethlehem Lutheran Church on November 10. In addition to the bowl sale, Empty Bowls also includes a simple soup dinner with soup and breads donated by local restaurants, a silent auction and bake sale. The event is open for lunch from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., and dinner from 5 – 7 p.m.
Gathje will present photos and information about his Empty Bowls project at the North House Intern Portfolio evening during the Winterer’s Gathering held at North House on November 18 -20.
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