The Western Juniper. Its gnarled silhouette is a familiar site on the high desert of Central Oregon. And while it’s a tree that’s much maligned by ranchers and allergy sufferers alike, to one local woodturner and artist, the juniper is truly a thing of beauty.
“Juniper is actually a remarkably beautiful wood,” said Paul Bianchina of The Turning Point in Bend. “It has a wonderful, sometimes wildly curving grain, and striking colors that vary from pale yellow to tans and deep browns and reds, often in the same piece of wood. People see it at one of our craft shows, and the reaction is often ‘no – that can’t be juniper!’ I love to see how surprised they are by its depth of color and texture.”
A retired contractor, local writer, and long-time woodworker, Bianchina is a fairly recent convert to both woodturning and juniper. “I’d done a little woodturning in the past, but a couple of years ago I took an intensive training class in Utah that focused strictly on lathe work. Since then I’ve been hooked! There’s a certain meditative quality to watching the shavings come off the wood as it turns, and seeing something take shape right before your eyes.”
And the juniper? “Well the juniper kind of came about by accident,” he confessed. “Turning blanks – the bare wood you start with for making something on the lathe – can be expensive, and I was looking for some inexpensive wood I could practice with. So I picked up some pieces of juniper from around my property, and seeing what it looked like after turning and polishing, I knew it was a wood I wanted to work with.”
He also explained that the juniper is no ordinary tree. Throughout the ages, juniper has been highly valued for its magical properties. It’s been used to ward off demons and snakes, guard against accidents and disease, enhance psychic powers, and even attract love!
There’s a lot more than just its beauty that drew Bianchina to the Western Juniper. “Well for one thing, it’s a local wood. It reflects the beauty of the Oregon High Desert, and that’s something I can share with both locals and visitors to the area.
“From a practical standpoint, this is a very under-utilized wood. I get a lot of my material from cutters who are working on government clearing projects, so it’s wood that would be burned or left to rot. The rest of the wood I use is old-growth material that’s already down, or old material such as fence posts that I’m upcycling. So it’s a very green wood source, and that also helps me keep my prices reasonable when compared to a lot of other woods, which can be quite expensive when purchasing pieces large enough for wood turning.”
That doesn’t, however, make juniper the ideal wood to work with. It’s taken Bianchina a lot of time and experimentation to learn how to work with this relatively hard and sometimes tricky wood.
“The thing about juniper, especially the older, dry pieces, is that you don’t always know what you’re getting yourself into. I use everything from a bandsaw to a pressure washer to get a piece ready for the lathe, and then a wide variety of sanding and buffing equipment afterward. It can even be a bit dangerous, and I’ve had pieces come apart and fly off the lathe. One of them took out an overhead light fixture!
“But the reward is the hidden treasure that’s inside each piece of wood, and I let the wood’s innate characteristics dictate the final shape of the piece I’m making. Knots, bark inclusions, and cracks are left the way nature put them there. As a result, every finished piece is truly one-of-a-kind.”
Bianchina makes items large and small, including bowls, vases, Christmas ornaments, decorative birdhouses, coasters, bookends, and much more. He also utilizes natural logs and branches to make votive and candle holders, and plans on expanding soon to unique wall shelves and perhaps small tables. “My wife’s been after me to make a traditional kiva ladder out of juniper for displaying her quilts, so you might even see some of those appearing at a future craft show as well!”
Bianchina’s work is available at the High Desert Museum and Fabulous Finds in Bend, and through Etsy at www.etsy.com, shop name “juniper turnings”.
He’ll be at the Bend Summer Festival July 12-13 and the Bend Fall Festival October 5-6.
Paul can be reached at turningpoint@ykwc.net
