Upon retirement, many people lose their sense of purpose, they become "one with the couch" and wonder what to do with life after employment. Edith and Bill Wiard are not at a loss. They have both enjoyed satisfying careers, retired and moved on with joyful exuberance; they are now hardworking artists.

I asked Edith about her inspiration, the basis of her art. She had a sheepish grin when she explained that part of her job as director of International Students at Finlandia University was to go to Japan to meet new students and their parents in the spring and to attend college fairs in the Pacific Rim countries in the fall.

She also taught English and English as a Second Language. Though she is retired she still travels to Japan and visits her students. She tells me the more she travels to this region of the world the more she becomes inspired by Eastern cultures and the simplicity of Asian design.

She often returns with a suitcase full of paper and hundreds of photographic images. Though she doesn't consider herself a photographer, she says that looking through the camera lens helps her understand composition. She purchases exquisite hand made papers and saves package wrappers, ticket stubs, and other exotic refuse. She integrates these paper treasures into her handmade journals, boxes, and folded paper assemblages. Edith also stays busy as the current president of the Copper Country Associated Artists, which she refers to as a working gallery. It is a place where visitors can see artists at work each Thursday from 10-2 and see periodic window displays of art. Many galleries have sprung up over the last 12 years and it is important for me to note here that the CCAA laid the foundation for the visual arts to flourish in what has become a small scale cultural Mecca.

That itself is another story. Bill Wiard was exposed to woodworking as an 8-year-old child in 4-H. He became interested in turning wood and had access to a lathe made by his grandfather in the 1890s. He continued to turn wooden bowls through high school and college where he earned a bachelor's degree in industrial arts education and received an Army officer commission through the ROTC program at Eastern Michigan University.

He served in the Army for 20 years with active duty in Korea, Germany and Vietnam. Bill earned a Master of Education degree from the College of William and Mary while living in Virginia. He retired from the Army in 1981 and in 1985 he started his second career as Senior Army Instructor in the Junior ROTC Program at Calumet High School until he retired in 1997. Bill is proud to say he never cuts a live tree. He gets his wood from burls and tops of trees that are refuse after cutting. He also purchases wood through mail order service, in his travels, and locally from Birdseye Creations in Mohawk. He has studied with various wood turners and taken part in symposia featuring world-class demonstrators of the craft. Edith and Bill Wiard say that they are very different but after 46 years of marriage, it seems their differences complement each other nicely. They both enjoy foraging for the materials they use in their art, which they work at full time from their home on the Lake Superior Shoreline near Calumet. Their current work, a blending of delicate paper objects and satiny sculptural wood bowls can be seen at the Community Arts Center. The joint exhibit titled The Elegance of Paper and Wood will be on display through May.

The Daily Mining Gazette - May 5, 2005

Burls Mean Bowls for U.P. Lathe Artist - Who Finds Beauty in Wood's Distortion

Barry Statesman: There certainly is beauty in trees. They're the material for artists and craftsmen alike. In their lifetime they provide the subject matter for the painter or photographer. In their passing, their life is celebrated at the hands of the artist craftsman.

On this edition of Michigan Magazine we make our way into the Keweenaw Peninsula to the home studio of Bill Wiard. Here on the shores of Lake Superior, normally discarded trees, stumps and burls are transformed into beautiful bowls, dishes, goblets and other decorative pieces of art that are both breath taking and utilitarian. Bill is an award winning turning artist with the careful manipulation of gouges and chisels and heavy duty lathes. Bill produces his art to an ever growing and appreciative audience. Bill tells us that he's loved working and creating with wood for nearly as long as he can remember.

Bill Wiard: Well, it was almost at birth. I started out in 4-H Woodworking downstate in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor area when I was about ten years old. And then when I went to college, I was an industrial arts major and did a little more. And then, I went in the Army for twenty years, so I kind of got away from it. Then we moved up here in 1981. There is so much wood here.

So much beauty and inspiration around here.

I got started again and have been doing it ever since then.

Do you recall the person you saw perhaps who did this work beforehand who you were inspired by when it was fairly new?

Well, since I started doing it, I've been involved with some absolutely expert people. David Ellsworth from Pennsylvania, John Gordon from Tennessee, and Richard Raffan from Australia. We go to wood turning seminars and symposiums, and those people demonstrate and are excellent teachers and a great inspiration to people.

The work that they can create from just something we can normally see as pieces of wood or stumps is something you look at differently don't you?

Yes.

You're walking through the woods with different eyes.

And even after we get them here. This is a big basswood burl.

Oh, boy! Do you see something in that, that can be made?

Well, something like this you have to kind of get a cup of coffee and just sit and look at it for a while and see exactly what you're going to do with it. There are things you could do. You could cut these off individually and make small bowls. The lathe that I have is big enough. It would take most of this. It's a big job, but usually what you get is worth it because the inside you can see is beautifully figured here, and that's going to make a very nice project, a bowl, or an urn or a vase.

Do you go out yourself physically looking for these pieces, or do you get people coming to you with pieces, or is it a combination?

Well, both.

Both?

Yes. The only time lye cut a live tree, is a tree that is going to come down anyway. Someone will call and say, "We're going to put another room on the house, and we've got this old Apple tree that has to be cut." So you know, they'll give me the tree.

When I built the pole barn across the road there were a couple Birch and Maple that had to be removed, so I cut those. I got some nice pieces for art work there. The rest of it, I use the whole tree, I just use for firewood. I've got some of it right here that we brought back. I even use the pople. Most people up here don't burn pople, but for spring and summer in the fireplace, the woodstove, it works fine.

So everything you have here as far as wood, is used in one way or the other.

And then, there are really good wood sources available. We went to a symposium down in North Carolina this year, and they had a trade show, and there were people there selling real exotic African, South American and Australian woods, but I picked up a few pieces there.

What is your favorite? Do have a favorite as far as form of wood? Basswood or...?

Walnut.

Walnut, Yes.

My mother and brother and sister are still on the family farm in an area where there is Walnut and Butternut. And this type here, which is an absolute nuisance wood. This is Box Elder from down in the Lower Peninsula which has a very obnoxious bug, and they blow down easily in windstorms, but they make beautiful turnings. You can see there's a red streak in most all of the Box Elder that I brought back up here.

Oh, my.

But Walnut, I think is my favorite whether I'm turning it, or making a piece of furniture or trimming a kayak that we worked on this summer. Walnut is, has always been my favorite. Well, we put this kayak kit together for my daughter this summer.

And again, we are speaking of the Walnut: Oh, about 57 years ago, and the County Road Commission people had cut a Walnut tree, and my father told them he'd come and get the log. So we went and got the logs and had them sawed up into boards, and I've been using them ever since.

So we trimmed this kayak, the rub rails on it, and the cockpit with Walnut, and we did a little inlay up here with Walnut. Then also we put her initial on here with a piece of Purple Heart from South America. I had a little scrap left.

Oh, my!

So it made a nice dressing.

Have you had it out yet?

Oh, yes. It was out yesterday and that's why it's kind of sandy and all right now.

In Lake Superior here?

Yes, in Lake Superior, and the shipping canal that goes between Houghton and Hancock.

That would be a lot of fun wouldn't it. Have you been in it yourself, Bill?

Yes, I have, but I prefer a canoe. I can't sit for a long period of time with my legs in one position like you need to for a kayak.

You certainly do have a love for wood. Let's take a look at your room in here and see what this love turns into here.

O.K. For the most part this is kind of a standard woodshop. I've got a band saw, and a table saw, a drill press, a jointer etc.

Here are some of your finished products.

Well, that's not quite finished yet. That was a very special find.

Look at the pattern. What kind of wood is this?

That is a Poplar burl that was growing on the side of a tree.

Look at that. It was a burl?

It's the only one I've ever found. I have a special tool that I can use on very special pieces of wood that, rather than making a big pile of shavings out of this very nice piece of wood, I'm able to cut additional small bowls out of it. So this is going to be a nested bowl, set of three pieces out of the same burl, and someone could use them this way or leave them in their natural process.

They could use it for decoration or whatever. Now this is a finished product?

That's finished, and that is a White Birch burl which was a large ball growing on the side of the tree.

Something that people would say, "That's just trash."

Well, they used to, but they don't now. The loggers used to leave those in the woods. They would take their logs and leave the burls in the woods, but they have discovered the worth of these, so they're bringing them in now and can sell them to carvers or wood turners.

It is beautiful.

This is an oak bowl that has a food safe finish on it. Just the first coat. What I'll do is sand this smooth again and put 2 or 3 coats of a special food finish on it.

So it will be able to be used.

Yes, a salad bowl. And I've got some other special ones. I picked up a nice big square piece of Koa Wood from the big island of Hawaii, and I also cut a couple of smaller ones out here. This is special here.

This is only found in Hawaii?

Only found in Hawaii. I found a wood turner in Hawaii, and I got it from him.

Patience and skill are used by turning artist, Bill Wiard who turns lowly buns into beautiful bowls.Incredible work made even more overwhelming by the fact that it wasn't uncommon for a year's work to be put into each piece when the carving and drying time are taken into consideration. From bowls to vases and even bottle stoppers, the lathe of Bill Wiard was not to be stopped. It was a one of a kind experience visiting with Bill and his family surrounded by U. P. inspiration, a piece of which he presented to Michigan Magazine for our museum.

Thanks, Bill. You'll be able to see Bill and his work throughout the Midwest at various art shows, and we wish him and his work the very best. Bill Wiard, another outstanding Michiganian doing what they love to do while truly living in this Great Lakes State.

Michigan Magazine - Feb-Mar-April 2002