With only a few old hand tools and some timber available I experimented with various designs, each becoming more and more elaborate and specialised in purpose. Eventually the projects were taken to school for construction in the carpentry class room, and so began my long affair with wood. By 1978 my woodwork teacher asked me to enter an annual competition and surprisingly I came second.

From that day on I knew my vocation, despite being warned there was less money in the woodwork trades. I started out as a Cabinetmaker, and travelled to night school to do more than just the daytime trade education. My enthusiasm was ridiculed by some classmates, but I had a dream and goal to pursue.

After qualifying as a wood machinist I enrolled in a wood turners course. Being left handed, the advice was that there wasn't much chance of success as the lathes were made for right-handers. It was a real concern, and it was difficult, but determination finally attained the competence required to achieve good design and beauty in my chosen medium.

While establishing a "bread and butter" woodwork business, I took time out to develop a line of interesting wood art and furniture pieces, particularly in ancient red gum, and began turning the first of my large wooden vases in native timbers. The latter became a challenge to push the boundaries of turning size and to devise the techniques required for the creation of unique "massive vases", made from the salvaged stumps and boles of increasingly rare Australian timbers, such as Huon Pine.

Working with these incredible fallen "monsters" gave me the inspiration to delve deeper, to know more of the lesser known species of wood, which, twenty years ago led to membership of the International Wood Collectors Society (IWCS). Within months of joining, many nights were spent writing to numerous members world wide and swapping samples. It was an engrossing journey that consumed a large part of my life. The lesser known and geographically remote exotic species became a particular obsession and so it was that the collector became the traveller.

Targeting particular species, overseas trips became missions rather than holidays. Each new country was explored for the different ways it related to its indigenous timber species. The forests and wildlife, the nature of the wood itself, its use in the historic buildings and churches, in its art and crafts all these formed part of my inner map of the country. These trips were enriched by meeting other wood enthusiasts, more often than not members of the IWCS. These people would give me amazingly coloured woods in exchange for the knowledge, techniques, and methods of working our Australian native timbers.

The more I turned and worked these exotic timbers, the more I wanted to learn about the environment (and their story) from where they came. I found the fallen timbers (in all their beauty) were not alone. I saw maybe for the first time, the common link to the beauty of rare timbers with the animals that depend and live with them. I was struck by the diversity and colours of the amazing creatures whose habitat it was. They inspired not only my art pieces but drove me to capture them on film to share their beauty. As time progressed my trips became less about exotic timber and more dedicated to capturing images of these wonderful creatures in remote jungles. I feel very lucky to be able to observe these animals in their natural environment and to share what I have seen.

On my travels I also learnt something much more valuable than collecting timbers and woodworking, this was the value of sharing knowledge and expertise with the indigenous people. I now had another mission when visiting other countries. This began with visiting local forest workers and craftsmen, giving instructions on safety on their machines. Many had severe injuries from a combination of unguarded equipment and poor training.

One memorable 1995 experience was, as part of an IWCS group, to sponsor a village girl's education in the city of Quito, Ecuador, in return for collecting samples of rare local timbers for purchase by collectors. Another special moment was on trip to Ecuador itself in 2001. As part of a public demonstration of the value the local Tagua nut (vegetable ivory) I turned a miniature container, which was given to one of the native women spectators to store her ring, the wonder and pleasure in her eyes said it all.

A recent adventure was to visit the Guianna's, in search of the snake wood tree (Piratinera guianensis), which I wanted to photograph. Though it was at times a hair-raising and stressful experience, I finally entered one of the most pristine forests of the world, with an Amerindian villager as my guide. We located a known specimen only to find it recently felled by the local natives for making bows. Stunned by the sight, we stared in disbelief at the shattered giant lying wasted on the forest floor. After camping overnight, we set off the next morning on foot and by canoe to another known site, 20k further into the jungle and located two more trees, one 400mm girth at the base and the other almost twice the size.

On return to the village the elder called a meeting at which I offered to teach the community the woodwork skills to make use of the whole tree rather than leave most of it to rot on the forest floor. This was eagerly discussed and expanded into a major project. The plan is not only to equip the community with the knowledge and technology to extract maximum value from their forest resources, and to manage these resources with sustainable harvesting, but to create a wood art industry. This would provide employment and an income for the villagers by adding value to the timber they take from the forest, rather the inevitable export of the raw timber at give away prices.

To kick start the project I offered to make a number of vases in various sizes, shapes and timbers as the core of a collection for tourists to visit, thus providing another revenue stream for the community. One idea is to sacrifice a snake wood tree for a documentary on the delivery of the log to Australia and its return as a collection of giant vases to the community. The leaders of the Amerindian community have reserved the two trees we found for the project.

This journey also provided a rare photographic opportunity to record and capture on film the magnificent indigenous wildlife. It is my intention to add to this collection of images on my future visits to the region and, as time permits, create and present an artistic synergy between the people, the fauna and the beautiful timbers in their exotic habitat.

Attracting the sponsors, raising the funds, and finding the producer required to create the documentary for this project, will be my longest journey yet.

Vince Manna - Melbourne, Australia - October 2006
diverseimpressions@gmail.com

http://www.woodreview.com.au/contributors/vincemanna/