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Handmade Gifts for friends and your home

 All of the work here is made by a small group of turners in Maine – Mark Baldwin of Borealis Press, Peter Keniston of Turner, and Temple Blackwood in Castine. There may be similarities between some pieces but no two pieces are just the same. New work is added regularly and some new turners may join in too.

Many of these lidded bowls are an elegant and practical way to keep butter out of the refrigerator – or in it if you prefer. They are so handy that a Borealis Butter Bowl Cult has sprung up and may run a candidate for president or a school board near you. Lauren Murray is one of the founding cult members. She writes: “Domestic life began anew when my butter bowl arrived. I depend on her completely. My guests won’t leave.”

T-043 - Red Maple Dry Vase with Red Split
2½″ x 7″ $19
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This red maple branch was turned green with the heart left in so it developed a split when it dried. (What to do but paint it red?) The strength is not affected. It was turned slightly asymmetrically for a bit of visual interest.

Cost each: $19.00
One of a kind

T-038 - Footed Cherry Platter
9″ x 1¼″ $58
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

For serving many things. Note: inside bottom has two tiny cherry plugs sealing little powderpost beetle holes where a little adolescent powderpost beetle chewed its way out looking for a little powderpost beetle mate.

Cost each: $58.00
One of a kind

T-042 - Larger Dry Vase
3″ x 8″ $45
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This old sugar maple had a full life on its way to a new home. Hard conditions spalted her wood. Powderpost beetles laid tiny eggs in it, which left tracks when tiny beetles chewed their way out in search of a way to make more post beetles. Maybe she donated some of her sap for maple syrup. When she finally fell some of the wood split (a hint is left at the bottom). And, for reasons only a maple can know, it expressed itself with that shimmering fiddle-back grain. I like her story and I know for a fact that she will hold other grown things – green, dried, or twiggy – that you bring into your life.

Cost each: $45.00
One of a kind

T-040 - Small Choke Cherry Dry Vase
2″ x 5¼″ $24
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Small dry vase, big impact. Have fun.

Cost each: $24.00
One of a kind

T-040 - Small Choke Cherry Dry Vase
2″ x 5¼″ $24
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Small dry vase, big impact. Have fun.

Cost each: $24.00
One of a kind

T-039 - Spalted Beech Bowl
6½″ x 1¾″ $60
Peter Keniston, Turner Maine

Another rescued from the firewood pile. Ideal for candy or pistachios!

Cost each: $60.00
One of a kind

T-039 - Spalted Beech Bowl
6½″ x 1¾″ $60
Peter Keniston, Turner Maine

Another rescued from the firewood pile. Ideal for candy or pistachios!

Cost each: $60.00
One of a kind

T-019 - Wormy Child's Bowl
Hackberry. 5½″ x 1½″ $25
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

If this bowl is going to a child we’ll include a little sheet explaining the “worm tracks,” which are really exit holes for tiny beetles who eat their way out of the log after they hatch, reach reproductive maturity, and go looking for a mate.

Cost each: $25.00
One of a kind

T-035 - Cherry Dry Vase
2½″ x 7″ $28
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

We said this on another dry vase but it goes for all of them: Whether for ourselves or a gift, all of these dry vases are an inexpensive, long-lasting way to celebrate a home and grown things around us that are not long stem roses. • Here’s another true thing: whenever one of these pieces is on the lathe, taking shape, maybe changing because of what the wood says, the turner almost certainly can see it on a shelf or table or kitchen counter, in a small apartment or grand home or maybe in a tent or the back of an RV, filled with whatever clippings might be beckoning in that night’s stopping place.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

T-025 - Footed Serving Dish
Mahogany. 11″ x 1¼″ $68
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This will serve many uses on the table with its ample size, lustrous food-safe finish, and interesting grain patterns in the fitted-together sections of mahogany.

Cost each: $68.00
One of a kind

T-034 - Old Pine Dry Vase
2″ x 7″ $45
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Today about the only source of treasured old growth southern pine is reclaimed wood from old structures or logs dredged from bogs. The wood might be from two to several hundred or more years old. It lasts because it has so much resin which, in turn, means that sanding never gives as good a finish as a sharp cut. This came from a 19th century convent, probably taken down in the early 1950s. Timbers were piled in a swampy field until the 1970s when a friend and I found and salvaged it to build a house on Maine’s Morgan Bay. This is from a left-over piece. The turning, as you can see, is asymmetrical with a hexagonal base. The wood has no finish other than the tree’s resin.

Cost each: $45.00
One of a kind

T-022 - Tea Candlestick
Ash, roughly 2″ T x 7″ H $42
Temple Blackwood, Castine, Maine

This unique candlestick holds a tea candle. What’s the advantage of that? No candle stubs or dripping wax, but mostly they give a lovely light and they are short enough so you don’t have to look around them to see the person across the table.

Cost each: $42.00
One of a kind

T-021 - Serving Bowl
Cherry and sugar maple.
7¾″ x 2½″ $70
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Show off cheese, dips, stir-fry or layers of crepes. The rim is one of the hard maples – also called rock or sugar maple, depending on where you live.

Cost each: $70.00
One of a kind

T-036 - Small Maple Tiger Dry Vase
2″ x 5¼″ $24
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This kind of grain (called tiger, or striped, or fiddle-back) seems to grow mainly in sugar maple (also called hard or rock maple). It is not impossibly rare but you can go through a truck full of wood and not find any.

Cost each: $24.00
One of a kind

T-020 - Cherry Egg Cup
3″ x 4″ $28
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

Use either end, the small for eating out of the shell, the large for scooping your egg into it.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

T-020 - Cherry Egg Cup
3″ x 4″ $28
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

Use either end, the small for eating out of the shell, the large for scooping your egg into it.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

T-018 - Ornamental Oak Burl
5″ x 2½″ $95
Peter Keniston, Turner Maine

Peter, who learned turning from his father, prefers to use found pieces of wood –– something interesting from the firewood pile, pieces friends drop off, maybe a hunk left behind by a road crew.

Cost each: $95.00
One of a kind

T-033 - Cherry Dry Vase
2½″ x 7″ $28
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Whether for ourselves or a gift, all of these dry vases are an inexpensive, long-lasting way to celebrate a home and grown things around us that are not long stem roses.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

T-016 - Mahogany Bowl/Plate
7½″ x 1½″ $60.
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

An occasional rub with the right oil will keep the warm glow for years and years as a family grows or they are passed around. Drop us a note if you’d like a short review of what we do, and some info on food-safe finishes. (Everything here is safely finished.)

Cost each: $60.00
One of a kind

T-004 - Butter Bowl Red
Poplar, teak, with oil paint.
5½″ x 4″ $85
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

The proprietor of this business would call every lidded bowl a butter bowl, but that may (possibly) not recognize that other people can have a different opinion. So please go ahead and imagine sugar, or paper clips, or pocket change. We’ll still call it a butter bowl.

Cost each: $85.00
One of a kind

T-002 - Cypress Butter Bowl
Lidded. Cypress fir, teak, oil paint.
4½″ x 5″ $78
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

A butter bowl? It makes sense but sugar or malt balls would be just as happy.

Cost each: $78.00
One of a kind

T-002 - Cypress Butter Bowl
Lidded. Cypress fir, teak, oil paint.
4½″ x 5″ $78
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

A butter bowl? It makes sense but sugar or malt balls would be just as happy.

Cost each: $78.00
One of a kind

T-041 - Lidded Walnut Maple Bowl - SOLD
4¾″ x 3½″ + knob $90
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

How might we use a lidded bowl? In our house it would be a butter bowl, if we needed another one. Otherwise I might say silly things about pearls and jelly beans or, more seriously, malt balls. Black walnut is a glorious wood. Sugar (or rock) maple is a nice contrast. The cherry lid with its warm color and wavy grain is a pleasing bridge. Ask somebody a couple of generations down the line what they think about it.

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-037 - Cherry 4-Side Dry Vase - SOLD
2½″ x 7″ $28
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This piece of cherry arrived at the shop as a small log. I split it and sawed it into planks. I spilled some gold paint on one of the planks. Because it seemed like a little story, one side of the vase has some of the gold paint, another side shows the split marks as they came off the ax. The third and fourth sides were planed smooth. One of those sides has two small knots, which look (and are) rather purposeful the way they fit into the shape.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-032 - Tea Candlestick - SOLD
Spalted cherry, roughly 2″ T x 7″ H $42
Temple Blackwood, Castine, Maine

This unique candlestick holds a tea candle. What’s the advantage of that? No candle stubs or dripping wax, but mostly they give a lovely light and they are short enough so you don’t have to look around them to see the person across the table.

Cost each: $42.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $42.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-031 - Lidded Oak Bowl - SOLD
White oak with sugar maple band.
Poplar and teak lid.
4½″ x 5″ tall with lid. $75.
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Holds at least a half-pound of butter, or lots of sugar for the table, or We’d-Like-To-Know-How-You-Use-It.

Cost each: $75.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $75.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-030 - Footed Oak Bowl - SOLD
5½″ x 2″ $48
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

A footed form is elegant when serving a dish on the table, but works just as well for morning cereal, mid-day soup, or three kinds of ice cream and a cookie whenever the mood strikes.

Cost each: $48.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $48.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-029 - Cherry Dry Vase - SOLD
5½″ x 2″ $19
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Why does this nice little twig vase cost less than others? No good reason; it’s smaller but takes just as long to make. It’s just hoping that someone might say, “Oh, OK. I have a corner for a little celebration like that.” T-007, near the top of the page, costs a quite a bit more because that beautiful flame grain doesn’t grow on trees… Oh wait . . . but it’s rare.

Cost each: $19.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $19.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-028 - Spalted Ash Dry Vase - SOLD
7½″ x 2½″ $28
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

From evergreens to dry weeds to something you make with twigs and yarns – it’s so simple to have bursts of imagination at home or work.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-027 - Multi-wood Bowl/Plate - SOLD
7½″ x 1¼″ $55
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

It’s a small plate. It’s a small bowl. It’s made of sugar maple with “plain” grain, different kinds of flame (or tiger) figuring, some pattern I don’t know the name of, and walnut. It’s been fun staring at it with light from different directions.

Cost each: $55.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $55.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-026 - Lidded Bowl - SOLD
Choke cherry.
3¼″ x 3½″ – With lid 3¼″ x 4½″ $68.
Mark Baldwin, Surry, Maine

It’s pretty. It feels good. It had a life as a sweet tree on the bank of the marsh, and then was a leafless woodpecker home. Now, perhaps, it can hold a two-foot string of pearls and a secret encoder ring. Let us know.

Cost each: $70.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $70.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-024 - Spalted Ash Dry Vase - SOLD
7½″ x 2¼″ $28
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Nice for the eye to fall on.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-024 - Spalted Ash Dry Vase - SOLD
7½″ x 2¼″ $28
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Nice for the eye to fall on.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-023 - Lidded Table Salt Cellar - SOLD
Hackberry.
Bowl 3″ x 3″ including lid. $34
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

There are plenty of less than $20 salt cellars on the market usually a hole drilled in a piece of wood, plastic, or marble with a stopper. This one doesn’t work any better though it’s easier to pinch the last bit from a rounded bottom than a flat one. This one comes with flaws, or interesting points, depending on how you see it. The little indented wiggles are where an adolescent powder post beetle chewed its way out of the tree when it was big enough find a mate and plant new eggs. The tracks are well sealed now, just a memento of a fellow inhabitant.

Cost each: $34.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $34.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-017 - Live Cherry Form - SOLD
7″x 8″ x 3″ at highest. $195
Temple Blackwood, Castine

Maine Here’s an experiment: keep a log of visitors in the house with a column for those who have a close look at this and those who don’t. We’re curious.

Cost each: $195.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $195.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-015 - Classic Mahogany Bowl - SOLD
6″ x 1½″ $40.
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

A small bowl with many uses.

Cost each: $40.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-015 - Classic Mahogany Bowl - SOLD
6″ x 1½″ $40.
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

A small bowl with many uses.

Cost each: $40.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-014 - Cherry Burl - SOLD
6½″ x 4½″ $235
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

This will be a household treasure for a long time.

Cost each: $235.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-014 - Cherry Burl - SOLD
6½″ x 4½″ $235
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

This will be a household treasure for a long time.

Cost each: $235.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-013 - Lidded Bowl - SOLD
Oak, oil paint on lid.
4½″ x 4″ $80.
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

In our house this would be a butter bowl. We can’t insist on what it is in your house but we’d love to know.

Cost each: $80.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $80.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-012 - Small hors d'oeuvre dish - SOLD
Cypress. 5½″ x 1¾″ $40
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Elegantly serve hummus or salsa, olives, nuts, malt balls, or rose petals.

Cost each: $40.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-012 - Small hors d'oeuvre dish - SOLD
Cypress. 5½″ x 1¾″ $40
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Elegantly serve hummus or salsa, olives, nuts, malt balls, or rose petals.

Cost each: $40.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-011 - Elm Dish - SOLD
American elm. 7½″ x 1¾″ $85
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

The American elm is one of the hardiest trees, or at least used to be before most were killed by Dutch Elm Disease, though varieties are developing that may be more resistant. This dish is from one of the old unfortunates. It grew on the Old Ferry Road in Castine, Maine.

Cost each: $85.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $85.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-010 - Serving Bowl - SOLD
Black walnut and maple. 8″ x 2″ $90
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Black walnut and sugar maple, two beautifully contrasting woods. Picture any color serving on the table.

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-009 - Spalted Birch Bowl - SOLD
Yellow Birch. 8½″ x 3¼″ $120
Peter Keniston, Turner Maine

Perfect for salad – you can see that the color goes nicely with green. Yellow birch (also called golden) is named for the color of the bark. It is the largest of the birches in North America and can live for 150, even 300 years if it’s highly combustible bark doesn’t catch fire.

Cost each: $120.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $120.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-008 - Yarn Bowl - SOLD
Cherry. 7½″ x 3¼″ $95
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

We find yarn bowls online, probably from Asia, for remarkably little money. They are pretty enough but, not so delicately turned and, Temple says, “never with the yarn hole hand-carved from a knot in the wood where the swirl of grain focuses the attention to the harmony of wood and wool.” Temple is a master turner in the village of Castine, not far from Borealis Press.

Cost each: $95.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $95.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-007 - Tiger Maple Vase - SOLD
8½″ x 3″ $50
Peter Keniston, Turner Maine

A person has to split a lot of firewood to find (and recognize) a piece like this.

Cost each: $50.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-007 - Tiger Maple Vase - SOLD
8½″ x 3″ $50
Peter Keniston, Turner Maine

A person has to split a lot of firewood to find (and recognize) a piece like this.

Cost each: $50.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-006 - Serving Bowl - SOLD
Cherry. 5¾″ x 3″ $88
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This bowl is not made to live as a decoration on a shelf. It’s made to enjoy its feel as you pass it around the table with a steaming mountain of mashed turnips with garlic, capers, and butter – or perhaps a pyramid of chocolate truffles with a garnish of fresh mint leaves.

Cost each: $88.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $88.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-005 - Cherry Burl - SOLD
7″ x 3½″ $265
Temple Blackwood, Castine Maine

Burls are those bulbous protuberances on a tree’s trunk or roots that can be the size of a small melon or a large beach ball. Burls are caused by some sort of stress but the result for the patient woodworker is wildly twisted and beautiful grain, or, occasionally, the excitement of chunks of an almost finished bowl flying off the lathe.

Cost each: $265.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $265.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-003 - Lidded Bowl - SOLD
(Not a propeller)
Old cherry with a new cherry lid.
Bowl is 4½″ x 2½″ $90
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

In 1915 cherry logs were hauled across Maine’s Green Lake for WWI airplane propellers. The ice broke and logs stayed on the bottom until Spud Davis and Gene King came home from WWII and salvaged them for their new Associated Builders in Ellsworth. I worked for Gene in the early 1970s and when I left he gave me the remaining planks too cracked and wormy for commercial use. This bowl is one of a few small pieces left of the would-be propeller wood. There are a couple of what we call worm tracks on the side and bottom, but really they are the exit holes from a small beetle that was born and came to maturity inside the log.
We think of this as a Butter Bowl, but we won’t take it back if you use it for something else.

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

T-001 - Butter Bowl - SOLD
Flame maple.
5¾″ x 3″ + cypress lid. $88
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

“Flame” is one name for this kind of across-the-grain figuring. It’s also called Tiger, Curly – and Fiddle-back because it is prized for violins.

Cost each: $88.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Cost each: $88.00
One of a kind

- SOLD

Buying as an Individual

Handmade Gifts for friends and your home