Luke Garrison

Artist Statement

I salvage wood that would have ended up in green waste facilities and I turn them into functional pieces of art that’ll hopefully last for generations. I turn on an electric wooden lathe and I make a variety of items but I specialize in bowls. A majority of my bowls find homes in my customers’ kitchens as daily, every meal eater bowls, as salad bowls, and as fruit bowls. Some of my bowls are used by businesses to display their goods. Often, my bowls are bought as gifts for others, especially as wedding gifts. I’ve also heard customers say that they just need to own this particular item and they’ll find a use for it afterward. I try to offer products at a range of different prices. One of my most accessible and popular items are my spinning tops – that are bought by customers of different ages and for different purposes – from young children learning to be more dexterous with their hands, to those who are nostalgic for a toy from their youth, to desk workers looking for something to fidget with during Zoom calls. Mostly, I strive for clean, classic pieces with a focus on highlighting the wood’s natural beauty although I do do a bit of exploring of different techniques once in a while. I try to keep my sourcing local and natural. A majority of my materials are from California and a greater majority from the San Francisco Bay Area. I try to steer away from artificial epoxies and resins and instead use food-grade, nontoxic materials like walnut oil and bee’s wax. I source the wood from freshly fallen trees myself so I can tell the customers a bit about the story of the tree like where it grew, why it may have this type of figuring, and more. Sometimes I am able to salvage wood from fallen trees on my customers’ properties so the finished pieces carry extra meaning for that particular customer.