When John Beaver comes across recently cut trees, he doesn’t think about a crackling fire or a vanishing forest, he imagines the logs transformed into one of his turned wood art pieces. For the past year and a half, the Pacific Palisades resident has scavenged felled logs he finds on Temescal Canyon Road or on the Village Green and hauling them to his home workshop. He has wrung beauty out of the Tipu trees on the Village Green, the sycamores and eucalyptus in Temescal, and even turned his Christmas tree into a bowl. A collection of his turned wood pieces will be on display at the Contemporary Crafts Market from November 5 through 7 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Turned wood is a form of woodworking that is used to create wooden objects on a lathe. Beaver’s artistry is no mere hobby; this is a man who dedicates at least six hours a day to what has become a passion. A passion that appears to have no similarity to his previous profession as a television commercial producer. ‘Actually, there are a number of similarities between photography and woodworking,’ Beaver explains. ‘The artistic and technical skills are directly correlated, and each involves problem-solving and patience.’ Beaver was a product specialist whose major accounts were Taco Bell and MGA Toys’the maker of the Bratz dolls. ‘You wouldn’t go into product photography if you lacked patience,’ he says. ‘Just to light a cell phone for a commercial might require 17 different takes.’ But, the business was his love. His company, John Beaver Productions, was doing fine until two events turned the course of his life: Bratz dolls began to ship all its business to Italy and Taco Bell moved its headquarters to the Midwest. ‘I was a photographer from the time I could walk,’ says Beaver, who grew up in Santa Barbara and graduated from Pepperdine with a major in film and television. ‘But, over the last decade, I could see that the film business was changing course; digital photography was killing us.’ As the business grew harder and harder, Beaver decided to get out. ‘For the first time in my life, I felt that mentally I was over the film business.’ Beaver can’t say that woodworking had been a hobby that he then moved onto center stage. His father did have a workshop and was an avid woodworker, who when he turned 60 took 12 weeks off and went to a woodworking school in Maine. ‘He loved it, but he was more of a cabinetmaker,’ Beaver says. But the lathe that Beaver’s father had given him lay unused in his garage for nearly 10 years, except for the several occasions when he fired it up to make nose cones for his radio-operated model airplanes. In July 2009, all this changed. Beaver turned his attention to woodworking and began to teach himself the basics. He practiced with the lathe and the numerous chucks and chisels that are part of a woodturner’s tool chest, first making yoyos for his girls. (John and his wife Candy have two daughters, Lauren and Rachel, who are now 15 and 13 respectively.) Then he challenged himself by trying a segmented piece. A segmented piece is fabricated from wood segments glued together and built up to make the shape. These pieces are then put on the lathe, just as a single piece of wood is carved and shaped. There some 30,000 woodworkers in the country, and less than five percent attempt segmented woodturning, Beaver says. Working out the geometry for segmented pieces is part of the challenge and Beaver thrives on ever more difficult concepts. Another triumph and one of his signature designs is the wave. ‘Most people can’t figure out how you put a wave around a bowl. Even a guy on the design team at Macintosh said ‘How the hell did you do that?’ After practicing on his own for a year, Beaver attended two workshops at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine, where he learned more techniques. He loved it. There were 10 students in his first workshop, mostly there out of casual interest. ‘I was really serious,’ Beaver says. ‘In the second workshop, which covered more advanced techniques on carving and cutting things away, I was the most dedicated student. I was the first one in the workshop in the morning and the last one to leave.’ Beaver has expanded on his wave design, incorporating it in both and closed vessels, recessing it and molding it, as if applied to the outside of the bowl. Along the way, he learned the characteristics of the wood he works. He favors walnut not only for its warm color, which contrasts well with other woods, but also because of its versatility. Maple carves wonderfully and its light, honey color can be beautifully accented with mahogany. Beaver finds a trove of interesting woods in the Palisades, including beech, cedar, carob and birch. But Bradford pear, found in Temescal Canyon, is susceptible to warping. With all his art pieces, Beaver has yet to enter the commercial market. Some of his pieces are on display at the Easton Gallery in Montecito, and he has won several juried shows, including two awards from the American Association of Woodturners and top prizes from the association’s exhibition space at the Orange County Fair. For the Contemporary Crafts Market, Beaver will display 25 to 30 pieces, including an assortment of his wooden bracelets. ‘I am taking all of this slowly,’ he says. ‘My first goal was to have my work in a gallery and my second was to show here in L.A. Now I’ll wait to see what the reaction is.’

Theatre Palisades presents ‘Putting It Together,’ the musical revue showcasing the songs of Stephen Sondheim from November 5 through December 12 at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd. The show, directed by Cathering Rahm, draws its title from a song in ‘Sunday in the Park with George,’ and was devised by Sondheim and Julia McKenzie and premiered in England in 1992.   In the production, two couples tell their stories through song and dance. Themes of romance and marriage, passion and heartbreak, betrayal and hope are expressed with Sondheim’s signature wit and style. Familiar songs include, ‘Everyday a Little Death (‘A Little Night Music’), ‘The Ladies Who Lunch (‘Company’), ‘Lovely’ (‘A funny Things Happened on the Way to the Forum’), and ‘Pretty Women’ (‘Sweeney Todd’)   Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets ($22-$18), call (310) 454-1970 or visit theatrepalisades.org. Parking is free in the theater lot.

Inveterate nature photographer Jim Kenney will be the guest speaker at the Palisades Garden Club meeting on Monday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 941 Haverford. A Pacific Palisades resident since 1965, Kenney enjoyed a long career as a dentist while at the same time developing his interest in the botany of the Santa Monica Mountains. ‘With the help of my friends and dozens of books, I have become quite familiar with the plants of the region,’ he told the Palisadian-Post in a 1998 interview. Kenney collaborated with is friend, author Milt McAuley, on the ‘Wildflowers of the Santa Monica Mountains,’ wherein he combines botanical accuracy with aesthetic excellence. All of the flowers have been photographed in their natural habitat. ‘I began taking pictures in 1974 in the campaign to keep Los Liones from being developed into condos,’ he said. By inventorying the trees and plants of the canyon, the supporters were able to establish the area as an important coastal plant community. Kenney once studied alpine and sub-alpine botany in Yosemite with the late Carl Sharsmityh, the man he call ‘the saint of Yosemite.’ Kenney says of him, ‘Next to John Muir, Carl knew more than anyone about Yosemite. I was one of his students when he was 78 years old, and he died at 94!’ A by-product of Kenney’s photography is his keen interest in hiking, and he is often up, out and back before most Palisadians have had their morning cup of coffee. In the last few years, Kenney has trailed birds with much the same zeal he devotes to plants. ‘A lot of photography is happenstance and luck, but you have to be prepared,’ Kenney said in a 2007 interview. He is particularly interested in shore birds and has chronicled seasonal events at Malibu Lagoon, which attracts more than 200 species on their yearly migrations.

Music Review

In 1948, Leonard Bernstein, frustrated over not finding his genius in opera wrote, ‘If I can write one real moving American opera that any American can understand, I shall be a happy man.’ One can understand why he was perplexed, given the rich repertoire of the Italian opera canon, particularly Puccini’s works that through melody and libretti aim for the heart and strike the center of human emotion’love and passion.   ’Tosca’ for all its theatricality and mixture of the religious and the sensuous, continues to hold its top position in worldwide popularity for having introduced one of the most fiendish villains in the lyrical repertoire’Scarpia.   The Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera opened the 2010-11 season these past two weekends with its third production, continuing its intention of introducing to audiences the favorites in the repertoire.   From its inception two years ago, the fledgling company has progressed in its goal of casting the best in talent, and this year the company accomplished a major step-up in presentation. Now ensconced at the Miles Playhouse in Santa Monica, the company presented a fully staged production thanks to the extraordinary set design by Josh Shaw. True to the stage directions from the opera’s debut in Rome in 1900, the visual style was enhanced from the opening scene when the spectator is thrust immediately inside the church of St. Andrea delle Valle. There is no overture. The opera begins with the three striking chords, signaling the motif typical of Scarpia’the dreaded chief of the Roman police.   The plot is dramatic enough, offering an opportunity for both lyrical expression and expansive acting. The trick for the major roles, Tosca, Scarpia and Cavaradossi is to establish their character to the extent that we understand their intentions and believe in their emotional world. This was thoroughly accomplished by the trio last Friday evening.   In the end, however, it comes down to the voices, and the Met is loaded with talent. Linda Jackson’s Tosca makes one forget everything else. How can one not weep with pathos after listening to ‘Vissi D’arte’ (Love and music, these I have lived for, nor ever have harmed a living thing) in the powerful second act.   The genius of Scarpia, subtly delivered by Alex Britton, is a portrait in seduction. A master of lascivious designs, Scarpia is frighteningly demonic, and yet deliciously self-satisfied. ‘I strive for what I desire, and when I have won it I throw it away and turn to some new attraction,’ he divulges unabashedly in the second act. His desire for Tosca is enflamed by her passionate loathing. ‘The spasms of hatred are not so very remote from those of love,’ he cynically declares.   Josh Shaw has found a comfortable berth in singing Puccini’s tenor roles. His Cavaradossi delivers a passionate plea, tinged with pride and handsome nobility in the difficult role of handling his Tosca’a woman of quick temper, and a prima donna by profession who is something of a spoiled child.   One cannot say enough about music director Galina Barskaya, who has proved herself to be an invaluable adjunct to all the Met’s productions. In ‘Tosca,’ she outdoes herself not only mastering the complicated score, but also conducting the singers from her console.   One word about the libretto. While the plot line is fairly easy to follow, the translation is particularly lyrical, even poetic at times. So, it was distracting when the superscript lagged behind the action, a technical glitch that is easily remedied.