African Mahogany Bowl. My friend Ray Nelson is a wonderful wildlife artist, and he also carves wood. Over a decade ago his wife visited Africa and returned with two small pieces of wood for him to carve. The wood chunks seasoned in his garage for more than ten years before he offered them to me for turning. I managed to extract two small forms from each piece--I kept one from each piece of wood and gave him the others. All had small cracks and voids that might have sent them to the scrap heap in other circumstances, but the wood was so precious I fought on.

The pattern in the African mahogany reminds me of a sunset through wildfire smoke, which somehow also evokes Africa itself. It is also reminiscent of the patterns I've seen in sandstone.

2 3/4" tall x 3 1/4" diameter. NFS.