Biography
Michael Foster was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He developed his love of the outdoors hiking and camping with his family and the with Boy Scouts in the mountains of Colorado. He went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder followed by Dental School at the CU Medical Campus in Denver. After graduation Mike entered in the US Public Health Service to provide dentistry to Native Americans with the Indian Health Service. He completed a twenty year career with the Indian Health Service in several locations including South Dakota, upstate New York, Phoenix, Southern Colorado and Alaska. All of these locations, with the exception of Phoenix, were relatively rural locations which suits Mike's love of the outdoors and a quieter lifestyle. Mike met his wife, Susan while living in New York. They have raised 2 children and numerous pets over the years. Mike retired from the Public Health Service in 2002 and moved to Susan's ancestral farmhouse in Springfield, Vermont. Mike is still practicing dentistry in various venues including part-time in a private practice, and providing contract dentsitry in Vermont and back in Alaska. He also spends a lot of time maintaining and improving the woods and fields of his old Vermont farm and continually makes improvements to his house.
Mike started woodworking soon after he graduated from dental school. He learned basic skills using the shop of a friend who got him interested. Mike bought his first woodworking tool, a Shopsmith, after moving to New York. A Shopsmith is a multi-function woodworking tool which also works as a lathe. Mike started turning on the Shopsmith slowly acquiring skills by trial and error. As his turning skills increased, he outgrew the limited turning capacity of the Shopsmith and bought a Woodfast lathe in 1992 . Using his Shopsmith, his new lathe and some plans from Wood magazine, he constructed his first segmented woodturning and was hooked. Mike has designed and completed numerous segmented pieces since then. After moving to Vermont, Mike built his dreamshop in the first floor of his renovated barn and replaced the Shopsmith with several separate stand-alone machines. He continues to turn bowls, boxes and hollow forms, but lately has ventured into carving his turned forms and explored texturing, coloring and other enhancements.
Artist's Statement
I love working in the medium of wood. Trees of a multitude of species and growth patterns provide an endless palette of colors and patterns with which to work. I get as much satisfaction turning a utilitarion bowl as turning a nice form out of a special piece of wood. Combining woods of different species to construct segmented forms is a special passion of mine. I enjoy designing the piece and the precise process of constructing and turning it. I challenge myself to create unique pieces, different in form and design from each other and the work of others.
Recently, I have been experimenting with carving turned forms. I love the extra dimension this allows in creativity with turned work. Even though turned forms offer endless possibilities, one is ultimately restricted to producing a piece in the round. There is certainly nothing wrong with this and some of my favorite forms are the simplest. However wood lends itself to alteration by shaping, texturing and even coloring.
At one time I thought that segmented work was going to become the focus of my work. I will probably continue to do segmented work, however I don't ever plan to restrict myself to one narrow art-form. My time on earth is limited, and the time I have to spend creating turned forms is even more restricted. If I am struck by an idea to try something new and different from my past work, I will likely follow through with it. Life is just too short not to follow your passion.
