Eleanor Lakelin (UK) burr oak hollow form 23x19cm. SignedWhen I started to learn to turn wood, three people were particularly influential– Dave Regester on a five- day bowl-turning course and the books of Ray Key and David Ellsworth. Since then I have learned many different approaches to hollowing and carving wood but the essential theory and appreciation of simple but perfect form was set in stone for me after reading Ray’s “The Woodturner’s Workbook”. I only met Ray a few times but I am very aware of his enormous dedication and importance to the woodturning movement worldwide and I am honoured to have been asked to be part of this project.My box with the part-turned oak blank arrived and I opened it with some trepidation. There was a major crack in the piece of oak burr which Ray had glued but then a chasm had opened above. Avoiding the crack was not really an option unless I made a miniature so I decided to try and bring the best out of the burred wood which must have attracted Ray in the first place and to embrace all the cracks and fissures. I wanted to keep a shape that would be reminiscent of Ray’s elegant forms but to carve and sandblast some texture into it in the freer, more organic way I tend to work. Balancing these two elements would be the issue and would determine the success of the piece. I hollowed the blank and carved rounded peaks into the surface and then sandblasted another layer of texture. Bleaching the vessel helped to bring together the sense of a fissured, eroded landscape- a piece celebrating both the essence of nature and growth and the beauty of classical form.I have tried whilst finishing this piece to create something worthy of a collaboration with Ray and I hope he will look down kindly on it.The Ray Key Collaboration Auction