‘One good turn’
Architectural woodturner restores historic homes across P.E.I.
It takes a special kind of skill to restore wooden gables on historic homes, not to mention ornaments, and doors
– but Gordon Jenkins has mastered it. “Herb Leavitt was a woodturner in Alberton and he took me under his wing at the age of 10. Since then, I’ve wood turned for more than 50 years and right now I teach this skill at Holland College,” said Jenkins, who was at Summerside’s Eptek Arts and Culture Centre for the P.E.I. Wood Turners Guild called ‘One Good Turn.’
SUMMERSIDE – It takes a special kind of skill to restore wooden gables on historic homes, not to mention ornaments, and doors – but Gordon Jenkins has mastered it.
“Herb Leavitt was a woodturner in Alberton and he took me under his wing at the age of 10. Since then, I’ve wood turned for more than 50 years and right now I teach this skill at Holland College,” said Jenkins, who was at Summerside’s Eptek Arts and Culture Centre for the P.E.I. Wood Turners Guild called ‘One Good Turn.’
Thanks to woodturning, many historic properties across the province are being brought back to life.
“I’ve turned wood for the gables at Dalvay-by-the-Sea, a Queen Anne Revival-style estate, and national historic site. I turned the handles on the oars for the Northumberland Strait iceboat, including the six ornate acorns on the Lieutenant Governor’s house,” he said.
“But this skill was passed down from the early (Selkirk) settlers. They needed spokes for wagon wheels, bowls to eat from, buttons on shirts, so they devised ways to make things out of the few resources they had on the Island such as wood,” explained Jenkins.
“As time went on, a lot of woodturning had been done for chairs, spinning wheels for wool, vases, bowls. In the 1980s there was a big change when computers hit the scene. Before, there was no control of the spinning wood. Now there are frequency drives, plus there is high-speed steel.”
Segmented turnings of bowls, vases, and sculptures, as well as gables used for old homes, were on display at the exhibit on Sunday.