Mark Supik workshop calendar adds tool sharpening and bowl turning classes

Tool sharpening sat at the center of Mark Supik & Co.'s June workshop calendar, and that was the point. The Baltimore shop paired a June 19 sharpening session with a June 20 Basic Bowl Turning Workshop, giving turners a straight line from edge maintenance to a finished bowl. For anyone who has lost a cut to chatter, tearout or a wandering bevel, that sequence mattered more than another demo night.

The Tool Sharpening workshop ran from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on June 19 for $100 at Mark Supik & Co., 1200 N. Macon St. in the Orangeville Industrial neighborhood of southeast Baltimore City. The class focused on sharpening gouges with a grinding wheel and a hone, then left the afternoon open for studio time so students could keep practicing. That was the practical fix for one of the most common bottlenecks in woodturning: a turner can know the cut in theory and still struggle at the lathe if the edge is off.

The Basic Bowl Turning Workshop followed on June 20 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for $200, with materials, snacks and lunch included. Students used green wood from recently downed local trees, started the day with safe lathe and tool use, then chose a log, turned the bowl and applied finish in the afternoon. Introduction to Woodturning was a prerequisite, which made the bowl class the next step in a teaching ladder rather than a one-off project day.

That ladder was already visible elsewhere on the calendar. Mark Supik & Co. also listed Introduction to Woodturning sessions for May 29 and May 30, plus a May 15 Basic Bowl Turning Workshop. The intro class covered woodturning safety, lathe operation, between-centers turning, bead and cove cuts and small projects such as wine stoppers, mallets, honey dippers, weed pots, darning eggs and nostepindes. It also served as the prerequisite for project-based workshops and open studio access.

The classes sat inside a working Baltimore shop, not a standalone classroom. Mark Supik & Co. said it has been turning wood since 1981, employs ten woodturners and artistic finishers, and began making beer tap handles for the craft-brew industry in 1995, now shipping them nationwide. Mark Supik first encountered studio woodturning as an undergraduate at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the shop has also produced custom architectural millwork and reclaimed-wood tap handles tied to Monument City Brewing.

The June lineup stood out because it matched the way turners actually improve: sharpen the gouge, learn the cut, then move straight into a bowl with fresh green wood. For a shop that wants muscle memory, that was the cleanest path on the calendar.