Jeff Hornung is an accomplished woodturner and artist based in St. Louis. He teaches classes in our Wood Studio, and his work can be found in our Gallery Shop.
Click on the image to hear Jeff talk about how he found woodworking and its healing power.
A piece Hornung created to represent the pain of his head injury
Woodturning Work
My strong suit is not having strong suits. My strong suit is having a really short attention span. One of the best parts that I find with woodturning is there are so many facets, so many elements, so many tools, that I will never get to the point where I know everything. That I know enough that I will get bored, because I can shift and move to a different thing for a couple of weeks, months, or whatever. Being able to move from one style to another, you know, truly functional pieces to really nice decorative art pieces – sculptural, conceptual type things. Combining techniques from the floral world – color theory and texture – or things that I learned when I was taking art classes.
I’m incorporating my own original photography right now with pen making. That’s just another rabbit hole that I’ve managed to go down. So yeah, my specialty is not specializing. But that means I get to do some really cool stuff, all day long, every day.
Recent Honors
Being someone that teaches here at Craft Alliance, knowing that I’m working with a number of really high-level artists and instructors, I wanted to make sure that I was on similar footing. I was approached by an organization in the UK, the Register of Professional Turners (RPT). And this is a very, very prestigious organization where the membership is primarily woodturners that do this full-time. That’s how they make their living. You know, artists, craftspeople, on a very high level who are invested in best practices and proper studio practices.
And there are no governing bodies in the United States that do this type of assessment. So I’m not only the first American woodturner to be accepted onto the RPT; I’m currently the only American woodturner to be accepted. Other people, I’m sure, will be able to make this leap as well. But I’m the first.
The vetting process for this was actually kind of intense. I’ve pursued this line of thought for a couple of years, and then have spent the last eight months really intensely getting myself ready. Because of how 2020 has changed our lives, I happen to have a really good digital studio in my personal training space. Just as a sidebar, I was one of the original four woodturners in 2019 – before it was the cool thing to do – to have a live virtual digital studio and start broadcasting [woodturning]. It’s all part and parcel of what I needed to demonstrate and translate my skill set to other people, to students or people watching demos or classes. And I think this not only gives me some personal validation within my own career path, but increases my value as an instructor in general.
Teaching at Craft Alliance
My favorite teaching experiences here are usually in the third week. Doesn’t matter what class; it’s usually week three when things start clicking for the students. There are a few things I say over and over again. But I’m throwing an enormous amount of information at students in a very small amount of time. And I can say the words, but I can’t make them understand what their hands need to do.
But eventually, having them hit the marks, they make little comments that they’re not really intending me or anybody else to hear. I get to hear, “Oh! That’s how that works! Let’s see if I can do it again.” When the little light bulbs start coming on, that’s the best part.
If you come into my studio, I’m going to do my best to make sure that you have the best chances of success. And the goal is having a good time learning something new, whether it’s in the Wood Studio, Metals, Ceramics…It doesn’t matter. Just try. Don’t be embarrassed to try.
Unexpected Talents
Give me a microphone, audience, dance floor, two turntables. Yeah, there’s one track on one DJ album out there that has my name on it…in very fine print, in parentheses. I made a remix of Telephone by the Black-Eyed Peas, and they produced it as a DJ remix cut on the B-side of a DJ album…So, yeah, I’ve lived lots of lives.
Explore our Wood Studio classes to take classes with Jeff and our other amazing teaching artists!
Learn more about Jeff at jeffhornung.com.