Our president Craig Mineweaser was out of town so Mark Rand our Vice President opened the meeting. He welcomed John Gohring, Immediate Past President, Frank Pierson Past President, Carl Mercer, Program Chairman and John Schmidt, Exhibit Coordinator from the Tuolumne River Woodworkers who took that long drive to see what we were all about. John is a member of our club as well. They meet the first Monday of each month at Scout Hall in Riverbank which is close to Modesto.

The first order of business was the election of Officers and Committee Chairpersons. Mark read off the slate and asked if anyone else wanted to enter their names for any of the positions. Since there were no other volunteers, a vote was called. The slate of Officers and Committee Chairpersons were approved with no opposition.

Silent auction items were described including many rolls of veneer and Stan Booker described the door prizes and raffle entry. Stan showed two beautiful planks of Bubinga and Walnut to be raffled off as soon as enough tickets have been sold. He also showed the two door prizes for the evening, a tool box and some veneer.

Guest introductions were next and there were several. Tim from Santa Cruz, Maynard and Guy. Unfortunately few details about these folks were recorded but they were welcomed to our meeting.

Main Presentation

Michael Cooper was our presenter for the evening. He teaches sculpture and 3-D Design at DeAnza College in Cupertino. He grew up in Lodi, California. Early on he was interested in motorcycles, guns, chains and coasters. These later became themes in his work. He studied Commercial Art at San Jose State receiving a degree in Illustration. He went on to earn an MA and MFA at U.C. in Kinetic Art. He began teaching in 1969 and has done so ever since. Michael used two slide projectors simultaneously and he showed considerable diversity in subject matter, technique and materials used. Most of his work uses not only wood but many other materials such as steel and aluminum. Some of his wood parts are intricate and incredibly complicated with double loops and more. He has also done over an old pickup with stunning and complicated motor parts spilling over to the sides of the vehicle and in front of the windshield almost to the point of no visibility while driving. He has also redone the interior of several vehicles with wood. One show-stopper was an almost life-size wooden motorcycle with side car no less made out of 48 types of unstained wood so the natural color and grain of the wood are accentuated..

Some techniques that stood out were the use of plastic resin glue in bent laminations to allow for a long assembly time, and the use of a Bosch 4 1/2 inch right angle grinder to shape the laminations. Michael's work is exhibited as far away as Australia.

There were many questions both during his presentation and afterwards. His presentation was laced with humor. One question was what was his definition of art. His response was that art can only be discussed over a drink in a bar!

A fascinating presentation from a very talented artist and crafts person.

Announcements

After the break, there were announcements and Show and Tell. Arnie Champagne described his class schedule which can be found in the CLASSIFIED section of this newsletter. Mark Rand also described some items for sale by Richard Miller which were inadvertently left out of the December CLASSIFIEDS. They will be in the January newsletter. In addition, he reminded everyone that he always brings extra paper copies of the newsletter and the Resource list to the meetings.

Show & Tell

Jerry Robinson brought one of the set of six steam bent chairs he had shown a mockup of a few meetings ago. He described some of the problems he encountered and how he got around them.

John Schmidt show several "Galileo" thermometers he had made following a plan in Wood magazine. He made some modifications and showed how he had made the stands for them.

Peter Wronsky showed a Lacewood beveled mirror frame. He had made a number of them as Christmas gifts. He had some features such as beveled mirrors and the bevel repeated in the wood frame.

Burt Rosenswieg showed a bird cage stand.

Brian Chan showed a tool box and tools his father Yeung had made for him.

Eric McCrystal showed some cabinet door frames and asked for some advice on how to make better joints.

The meeting ended with the raffle. The recipients of the prizes will remain unknown since their names were not recorded. The Bubinga board was also won by someone whose name was not recorded. Not enough tickets were sold to raffle off the walnut. It will be back at subsequent meetings.

Robbie Fanning's Hospitality team for the first quarter of the year is Jim Voos, Erl Belland and Ron Gerard so we are assured plenty of donuts and other goodies.

Finally, all were reminded to renew their membership. If you can't make the meeting then mail a check for $30 made out to BAWA to Harold Patterson our membership Chairperson at 728 Gull Ave., Foster City CA 94404.