Ohio Valley Woodturners Guild fills May with classes, honors, accessibility

What to attend now

Ohio Valley Woodturners Guild has turned May into a working calendar, and Dennis Fuge sits at the center of it. The most urgent item is the class on May 18, *How To Say I Love You From A Lathe*, where only a few spots remain. That session is built around about 10 quick project ideas and roughly three demo pieces, including a jewelry heart, non-cheese-eating mice, and a worry donut or heart-shaped box.

The guild’s May 16 meeting gives the month its anchor. Fuge, a turner from Erwinna, Pennsylvania, is scheduled from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., bringing a body of work shaped by 50 years at the lathe and a teaching resume that includes Peters Valley School of Craft, Snow Farm, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. His demonstrations lean into deep hollow vessels, platters, and artistic work, with wood treated as a canvas and built up with color, mixed media, carving, and metals such as pewter, copper, and brass.

The next day, the momentum continues with *Hollow Vessels from the Bottom-up*, set for May 17 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. That class is already marked full, which says plenty about the pull Fuge has on the guild’s schedule. Taken together, the meeting and the two classes make this stretch of the calendar feel less like a routine club week and more like a concentrated clinic in advanced turning.

What to sign up for next

May does not stop with Fuge. Keith Bundy’s finials class lands on May 21, giving turners a chance to spend time on one of the most exacting details in spindle and hollow-form work. Finials demand clean proportion and control, and the fact that OVWG has placed a dedicated class on the calendar shows the club is still feeding members both structure and challenge.

Dave Kratzer follows with a mini-hat class on May 30, another project-driven offering that should appeal to turners who like fast, presentable work with a clear finished form. Then the guild moves into June with a two-part segmenting class beginning June 13, taught by four mentors. That setup matters: segmenting rewards repetition, correction, and the ability to see a form from multiple angles, and a four-mentor format suggests hands-on coaching rather than a single-demor, single-pass approach.

Read together, these classes map out a clear path through the early summer. Fuge covers expressive hollow forms and gift-oriented projects, Bundy brings precision with finials, Kratzer shifts into a playful small-form build, and the segmenting course offers a more technical route for turners ready to stretch. It is the kind of schedule that rewards checking back often, because the openings are moving faster than the month itself.

Why John Shannon’s recognition matters

The other headline on OVWG’s May page is not a class at all, but a nod to one of its own. The club congratulates member John Shannon, who was selected as Monthly Featured Artist at World of Woodturners. That recognition carries weight because WoW is a long-running online community that began in November 2001 and exists as a place where both novice and seasoned turners share work and knowledge.

Shannon’s profile fits that peer-network spirit nicely. He has been honing his skills since 2009, he joined the ranks of the happily retired in 2017, and much of his lathe time goes toward bowls and boxes. WoW highlights his boxes in particular, noting the use of contrasting inlaid woods and the attention he gives to form, fit, and finish, with several pieces also earning Photo of the Day honors.

For OVWG, the recognition does more than celebrate one member. It shows how local club life and the wider turning community feed each other. A turner can work through years of practice at the bench, then have that effort seen by a broader audience that understands why a clean box lid or a well-balanced bowl still stops people in their tracks.

Why accessibility belongs in the same conversation

OVWG’s May update also points members toward its Turning with Physical Limitations section, and that inclusion feels as important as any class announcement. The club notes information about a sit-down lathe at the Learning Center, which makes the craft feel more open to older turners and anyone working around joint or mobility issues.

That approach lines up with guidance from the American Association of Woodturners, which says physical issues need not keep someone from making shavings and that seated turning can often be adapted using standard tools and techniques where possible. The message is practical rather than sentimental: if the posture changes, the craft does not have to leave the room.

That is the quiet strength of OVWG’s May. The calendar is crowded, but the club is not treating skill, recognition, and access as separate conversations. Dennis Fuge gives the month its draw, the classes give it a progression, John Shannon’s honor gives it reach, and the accessibility note keeps the whole thing grounded in who gets to keep turning.