About the artist

Many people are shocked to see light filtering through an object made of solid wood, but translucence is the hallmark quality of the woodturned vessels of Hawaiian artist Ron Kent. His delicate, fingernail-thin bowls begin from 100–pound sections of green Norfolk Island pine, found throughout the South Pacific. After hours at the lathe, sculpting each piece to take advantage of its unique grain and knot placement, Kent brings out its translucence by repeated oiling and sanding. It is a painstaking, intensely physical process that ultimately results in an object of fragile and surprisingly illuminated beauty.