When Jade Hanas returned home from her first workshop at Peters Valley School of Craft last summer, a new lathe was waiting on her doorstep.

The PennWest honors student had spent five days learning spindle turning – her first experience working on a lathe – and was hooked.

“I fell in love with the practice,” said Hanas, a Waterford, Pennsylvania, native studying studio arts wood and furniture design at PennWest Edinboro.

A year later, she returned to the craft school in Layton, New Jersey, ready to take the next step.

Hanas recently completed “Bowls for Days,” an intensive five-day woodturning workshop led by maker and educator Janine Wang. The experience gave her an opportunity to develop new technical skills, work alongside woodturners with a wide range of experience and explore a part of the craft she had only begun to investigate on her own.

After last summer’s introduction to the lathe, Hanas continued practicing spindle turning at home and experimented with making shallow bowls. Those early attempts convinced her that she wanted more formal instruction.

“I decided it was time for me to take my turning skills to the next level and learn the basics of bowl turning,” she said.

During the workshop, Hanas learned to safely use a bowl gouge to create vessels and forms and explored the differences between turning dried and freshly cut, or “green,” wood. Students also learned to process logs into bowl blanks with a chainsaw, identify characteristics within the wood and sharpen the specialized tools used in the turning process.

Working with green wood proved to be one of her favorite discoveries.

“It felt like cutting through butter, it was so smooth,” she said. “And it is surprising how green wood will spray water when you turn it on the lathe.”

For five days, Hanas was immersed in demonstrations and hands-on work from morning until evening. While developing her technique was a central part of the experience, she also gained a greater appreciation for wood itself.

A lecture from Wang about the science and structure of trees explored topics ranging from what creates color within different species to why some woods can cause allergic reactions.

“That lecture alone made me think about wood as a material a lot more than I had ever thought about it,” Hanas said.

The workshop also placed Hanas in a community of makers at different stages of their own development. She worked alongside beginners as well as experienced woodturners, including a high school woodshop teacher and a retired woodworker who shared their knowledge with her throughout the week.

“It is so exciting to be surrounded by people who share the same passion and desire to learn,” Hanas said.

Wang’s instruction helped Hanas address many of the technical questions she had developed during a year of practicing independently.

“She is amazing at encouraging good work and troubleshooting issues students are having,” Hanas said. “It felt like she answered all of the unanswered questions I arrived with.”

The experience was made possible in part through a scholarship from Peters Valley and additional support from PennWest’s Wood Club and Student Government Association.

It was also one of two opportunities Hanas had this summer to immerse herself in the broader woodworking community. In June, she traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina, for the American Association of Woodturners Symposium, where she viewed work from artists across the field and built additional professional connections.

The two experiences complemented one another. Hanas even met Wang at the symposium before arriving for her Peters Valley workshop, giving the pair an opportunity to connect before working together in the studio.

For Hanas, those experiences demonstrate why learning beyond the classroom can play such an important role in an art and design education.

“I truly believe that travel and workshops are so important to the professional development of students,” she said. “It allows me, and other students, to make connections and relationships I would have never had if I didn't attend.”

Back at PennWest, Hanas expects those new techniques and perspectives to become part of an expanding creative toolbox.

“I think of learning and experiences as a snowball that builds and grows,” she said. “I will now always have this experience with me to use at any point in time in my work, and I think it opens doors to solutions that I might not have had access to before.”

She sees bowl turning as a foundation for more complex forms and future works of art, whether she applies the techniques to production work or incorporates turned elements into her furniture and artistic designs.

And much like the lathe that followed her home after her first visit to Peters Valley, Hanas expects this experience to continue shaping where her work takes her next.