Category
2025, WoodArtist Website: www.jsturnings.com
Short Bio:
Jay and Sherry Phillips grew up in the St. Louis area, were high school sweethearts who lived across the street from each other and now live in Chesterfield, MO, a suburb of St. Louis. Their medium is primarily wood but they also weld metal to create functional horseshoe art and create laser art on wood and leather. Jay owns his own IT consulting firm and has been a woodworker for over 30 years, building furniture, remodeling their home and turning wood on the lathe. Sherry is a retired hospital social worker who has been turning wood on the lathe for over 15 years.
They have taken workshops, private lessons, and network with other wood workers in order to evolve their style and work by experimenting with different creative methods to make their pieces artistically unique. One example of unique wooden pieces is their technique of segmenting wood to then create artistic pieces which have original art lasered on them. They mix and mold a lot of the resin blanks that they turn on the lathe. A distinctive pen design of theirs uses authentic vintage postage stamps (purchased from a local stamp collector) that they wrap on the pen tube. They then clear caste mold over the stamps to create the blanks that they turn on the lathe for the pen body. Jay and Sherry use exotic imported woods from around the world as well as local repurposed woods from Missouri.
They are motivated by their appreciation of and respect for nature. The beauty of wood and how each piece is unique provides their incentive to create pieces that enhance that unique beauty within their finished pieces. They particularly enjoy upcycling local Missouri wood and are proud to create with it rather than have it discarded as worthless.
Jay and Sherry are juried Best of Missouri Hands Artisans and have been juried into numerous art shows over the past 6 years, including the MO Botanical Gardens Best of Missouri Market (2019 will be their 6th year there), Webster Arts Fair, Kirkwood Artists Boutique, Richmond Heights Art Fest, Art in the Park at Francis Park in St. Louis Hills, Art in the Park in Columbia, MO, Schlafly Art Outside, Old Capital Art Fair in Springfield, IL, Wildwood Art Festival, just to name a few.
They have four adult children, two daughters in laws, six grandchildren, a Goldendoodle dog and enjoy traveling around the country in their motorhome, camping, hiking, boating and fishing.
Artist Statement:
We turn wood on lathe & segment wood using planer, power sander, table saw. We upcycle MO/IL woods & exotic woods. We mix & mold resin blanks. We mix resins fill wood imperfections & laser images in wood.