Frank Penta

Past president of the Woodturners Guild of North Carolina, Frank has been involved in woodworking throughout his life. Since 1977 he has focused specifically on woodturning. His work integrates function and aesthetics with fine detailing and finishing to enhance the natural beauty of the wood. Frank's one-of-a-kind designs are exhibited in private collections and sold through museums and galleries.

Frank has been a demonstrator at numerous woodturning clubs, as well as regional and national symposia. He has conducted workshops in a variety of settings including John C. Campbell Folk School, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Appalachian Center for Crafts.

Frank's professional experience in education is reflected in his teaching ability and the high quality of his woodturning classes, demonstrations, and instructional materials.

His work has been has featured in American Woodturner magazine,and he is coauthor of the book Woodturning Tools, Techniques, and Projects.

Personal Statement

Since I was twelve years old I have had an interest in Wood Working. In 1997, my interests turned to wood turning and I have been hooked since that time. In the sixteen years I have been turning, I have learned from many Masters of the craft and art of wood turning. Allan Batty comes to mind as one who has influenced me greatly. I am a past president of the Woodturners Guild of North Carolina. I have taught at John Campbell Folk College, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and the Appalachian Center for Crafts. I have demonstrated at numerous wood turning clubs and symposia across the country. I am semi-retired from my own company which develops educational training materials for the business world.

Since my life's work has been teaching, I am extremely interested in teaching. Because I love wood turning, I feel a strong desire to impart my knowledge of wood turning to anyone who has an interest in learning it.

I have found a group of turners who share this desire with me and want to learn and teach wood turning. That group is Chapel Hill Wood Turners. Like me, they all yearn to turn and learn new ways to make beautiful works of art from mundane pieces of wood. Our workdays are full of looking over each others shoulders and asking questions. We observe, question, discuss, and practice all aspects of wood turning from selecting the raw wood to applying the finish. From this, we have been developing handouts or instruction manuals to help others develop their talents in wood turning and produce works of art.

I forsee many members of CHWT giving demonstrations across the country at clubs and symposia where they can impart their knowledge of wood turning to others. We practice our "demos" with each other and develop handouts to facilitate getting the information into others' hands. Many of these handouts can be found on our Resources page.

One other thing I have noticed happening at CHWT is the development of new or different ways or procedures to do a particular action. This is exciting and I look forward to watching these develop in the future.

Frank