Beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine with turquoise outlay
Beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine with turquoise inlay

Uniquely Creative Wood-Turnings


Larry Fox
Castle Rock, Colorado larryfoxywoodz@gmail.com
500 year old Bristlecone Pine with turquoise inlay
Beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine with turquoise outlay

Uniquely Creative Woodturnings


Larry Fox
Castle Rock, Colorado larryfoxywoodz@gmail.com

Beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine with turquoise outlay

Beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine with turquoise inlay

500 year old Bristlecone Pine with turquoise inlay

Beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine with turquoise outlay

Larry Fox is a Colorado Woodturning artist who has lived in the Pikes Peak area for over 40 years. He owned and operated several businesses in Manitou Springs. One of those businesses was create custom T-shirt design and printing company.

Since semi-retiring in 1995, Larry has devoted his energies to creative, artistic woodturning. He began in an adult education class at Manitou H.S. under Dennis Korth and then took several graduate level woodturning courses at Colorado State University from master woodturner Dr. Lee Carter. His education has since continued with classes from such world renown woodturners as Trent Bosch, Stuart Batty and a week long class at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass Colorado with David Ellsworth.

Larry has found one of his niches to be the turning of beetle-kill Ponderosa Pine bowls enhanced with Cripple Creek Turquoise. When the pine beetle attacks a Ponderosa, the tree tries to fight the ensuing fungus by drawing up minerals from the soil. It is a combination of these minerals and the pine beetle fungus that turns the normally yellow wood into various shades of blue-green hues. Larry then adds the blue-green Cripple Creek Turquoise to the edge or in various inlays. These two mediums complement each other in an exquisite beauty of color and form utilizing all Colorado raw materials.

Unless chemically sprayed, the pine beetle usually wins this battle of nature and the tree eventually dies. The tree is then harvested, allowed to "age" for several years before Larry turns them into his turquoise laden bowls. Finally it's nature's unending cycle of life, struggle and death that become our objects of creativity, art and beauty.

Another of Larry's specialties is turning Colorado Bristlecone Pine and inlaying with Cripple Creek Turquoise. Bristlecone Pine trees are among the oldest living trees in the world. One has been found in California to be over 5000 years old. In Colorado they grow at an elevation of about 10,000 feet. It is unlawful to cut down any live trees but Larry has found areas on both public and private lands where the trees died about 100 years ago. With permission, Larry has harvested these trees that were around 400 years old when they died making them about 500 years old now.

It is Larry's hope that your unique art piece will give you years of eye pleasing pleasure and hours of delightful conversation.