James Edward Barnes

Woolwine, VA | Exhibiting Since 1996

This Blue Ridge Mountain wood turner starts with woods native to southeastern Virginia and inlays the most exotic woods of the world. He looks for stumps, burls, or gnarled trees that have been influenced by the passage of time. His specific vision is in the design; ancient forms with a modern twist. Mother nature brings her part, the beauty of the wood figure. Ed Barnes’s part is to use the vessel as a canvas to inlay designs and introduce elements that nature never intended. Then there are the gray areas that make the viewer wonder whose hand is responsible: nature’s or the artist’s.