Mark Taylor may not whisper to the wood he holds in his hands before working on it. That was something Michelangelo was known to do. But he does listen to the wood. He looks for what each piece holds within it, waiting to be revealed. Taylor is a woodturning artist based in Illinois. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he developed a respect for restraint, balance, line, and the discipline of seeing clearly. He is bringing his work to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Fair on June 5th and 6th.
Taylor began as a furniture maker—until the moment he discovered the lathe.
“The furniture was all about the construction and the form and the negative spaces,” he says. “We always approach the furniture in a very sculptural form with a little function going in there for good measure. It was at a point where I decided that I was going to start turning legs for the furniture instead of using a table saw and chisels and shaping them out. So we started turning legs on a lathe and for me—that was it. I never made furniture again.”
It was a moment of discovery, bringing Taylor back to what he had learned and loved at the Art Institute of Chicago as a student. At that time, he had enjoyed figure drawing, focusing on lines and shape. He realized what he had been missing in his work.
“I realized that the lathe was all about subtraction,” Taylor says. “That was kind of what I had been interested in all along. I’m able to take a piece of wood and release it, if you will. All through subtraction. Any time I approach a piece of wood and I come in with a preconceived idea of what I would like it to look like, the wood always has other ideas.”
Taylor looks for the “faults” in a piece of wood—the rough edges, the burls, the fractures—and works with them rather than against them. He creates sculptural pieces, vases, vessels
After decades of making, 2026 marks a significant new public chapter in Taylor’s artistic life. His first juried fine art fair appearance will be at the KIA Arts Fair, Bronson Park, June 5th and 6th, in Kalamazoo, followed by his first ArtPrize entry in late summer in Grand Rapids, and a solo exhibition at Glen Oaks Community College in the fall. Visit Treverk Woodturning to view more of Taylor’s work and upcoming events.
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