When I started turning, I drew a lot of inspiration from Robin Wood's book The Wooden Bowl. The glossy photographs of porridgers, mazers, and quaiches gave me shapes to imagine and words to describe them with. I still return to the book for ideas--such a great resource. I would encourage you all to run out and get a copy now, but the book is largely unavailable unless you are willing to pay Amazon's bargain-basement price of $975!
Then, sometime around 2014, Jarrod Dahl kindly shared photographs of his research on Scandanavian bowls and locking lidded boxes. About the same time, I also became interested in Roger Abramson, another turner of Norwegian-style ale bowls. For me, this was the first time I was exposed to a new tradition of turning, new forms, new finishes. But finding examples was/is hard. Roger suggests some books for inspiration, like Norske Drikkekar av Tre and Drikkestell for øl i Trøndelag. But unfortunately, like The Wooden Bowl, these books are impossible to find. And there are other books, referenced here and there on people's blogs, also impossible to find (for me at least.) Anyone have a copy of Vackert Svarvat: skönt målat by Svening Svenningson? How about Träsvarvning efter gamla förebilder by Hans Mårtensson? I will give them a good home...
Thus, most of my inspiration comes from the internet, and especially the Digital Museum. This is a great resource, but it can be frustrating to use if you don't speak Norwegian. Yes, the site can be set to English, but how do you know what terms to search for? Search for "bowl" and you get some results, but not what you might want if you turn wooden bowls.
So, this post is to help those out there looking for inspiration from the Digital Museum but not sure what keywords to use.
Try searching for:
- "Skål," relating to the word "shell," a shallower shape, more open.
- "Bolle," relating to the word "ball," a deeper, rounder, more closed shape.
- "Ølbolle" or "ølskål" is a "beer bowl." Some with a pronounced foot, some with a tiered interior, some with the classic ale bowl profile that Jarrod popularized.
- "Vangar," a bowl with two ears--what I came to know was a "porridger" from the English tradition.
- "Snippebolle" or "snippeskål," a bowl with four ears. I have also seen them called "snibbskal."
- "Trøys," a spouted bowl for serving beer or milk. Roger makes amazing examples of these!
If you have further suggestions, please share them in the comments! I am especially looking for a search term or phrase for what I know as "locking lidded boxes", like below.
**Update (11/25/21): Many thanks to my friend and fellow turner Etienne for his answer to the locking lidded box question: "skruvask" or "skruvasken." As I search the Digital Museum with these terms, nothing comes up.
