Dennis Clayton, our demonstrator for June 2023 has provided us with a nice biography:
Dennis Clayton – Artist, Photographer, Woodturner
Dennis has been involved in photography his whole life. His father was a army photographer in World War Two, stationed in Puerto Rico, and later with the Air National Guard in Madison. His father had a darkroom at home and Dennis helped in it while growing up. In 1975 Dennis opened his photography studio in the storage room of his father’s small camera store and grew a very successful business photographing high school seniors. He closed his business in 2014 and is enjoying retirement.
In 1997 Dennis need a stress reliever so he purchased some basic woodwork equipment and started making decorative dimensional boxes. Shortly after that, at the woodworking show in Milwaukee, he saw someone turning pens and another a duck call and purchased his first lathe soon after that.
Today he turns on a Robust Sweet 16 lathe, embellishes many of his turnings and photographs them, at home, in his basement studio. He has been a mentor at West High School in Madison teaching woodturning and is very involved in Badger Woodturners in Madison.
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