About Kalia
I was raised in a house full of creativity and art supplies. Though my parents were both cartoonists by trade, they spent a lot of time working with other media, making jewelry, furniture, sculpture and clothing according to whim or need. In college, I decided on a career in graphic design, but after a short and unhappy stint in the advertising industry realized that I preferred making actual, physical things. I retrained as a woodworker and have been much more happily, though less lucratively, working with wood ever since.
The first part of my woodworking career was spent making furniture and cabinets, with a little side trip into guitar repair and making guitar parts, but I’ve loved turning from the first time a friend plonked me down in front of his lathe and chucked in a piece of madrone. I still use the carving mallet I made that day, my first turned object, and have been extending and improving my skills ever since. My woodturning specialty is functional bowls and plates. They feel good. They’re useful and beautiful, and they can last a lifetime. A well-made bowl can be a wonderful way to honor the tree the wood came from, and a wonderful way to grace a table.
