Roberto Ferrer - Chicago, Illinois

Woodturning Weekend Conversations

Roberto Ferrer was born and raised in Mexico, where he was surrounded by art and crafts from the early age.

While drawing and painting were part of his everyday life, the love for wood as a medium was born in his childhood when he used to visit his cousin's wood shop. But it was the colonial and baroque style architecture in his hometown that sparked the desire to one day be able to create sculptural work.

His natural curiosity of knowing how things are built and how mechanisms work led him to explore different jobs such as construction, auto mechanics, body shop among other things.

In his mid twenties he started carving sculptural bowls and vessels using a limited number of handheld power tools. Although the results were somewhere satisfactory, it was hard on his body and time consuming as well. And this is what eventually led him to pursue woodturning as a way of removing wood in a more efficient manner and to lay the base for the sculptural work he currently creates.

In July 2019 he received the POP Excellence Award, and his work was featured in the AAW journal in August 2019 as well as the October issue of the same year.

In 2020 Roberto was among the invited artists for the POP exhibition, where he presented a sculpture with his own interpretation of Quetzalcoatl.

In recent years he has been invited to demonstrate at local woodturning clubs, and to teach in wood working schools. Since 2018 he has participated in art shows throughout the Midwest as well as online juried exhibitions. He is humble to know that his work is now part of private collections across the USA and Europe.

Roberto lives and works in the suburban Chicago where his studio is located. There he is able to combine both family and the passion for making and creating.

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