REBECCA DEGROOT
Spend the weekend with Rebecca DeGroot learning some new and unique techniques for turning, carving, and otherwise embellishing your projects. Rebecca is a teacher by training, an artist, and frequent demonstrator throughout North America. Rebecca will focus her demonstration on her very unique walking mushrooms, aquafiers, and other creatures. She will also demonstrate boxes as sculptural items and discuss various surface embellishment techniques that can be applied to all projects.
Rebecca started woodturning with her father at a very young age. Her dad’s rule was simple, if she could stand on the bucket and reach the lathe, he would teach her how to turn. That’s exactly what he did, and at five years old, Rebecca spent her evenings in the shop turning honey dippers with her father. Although she knew from a young age that art was her passion, it was during middle school that she realized that this fascination and enthusiasm could be pursued as a career in teaching.
After graduating high school Rebecca decided to go to college to turn her dream of teaching into a reality. While attending Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Rebecca found herself back in the school’s basement woodshop. Fifteen years had passed since she had spent any significant time in a woodshop, and she took back to it like reuniting with an old friend.
Since graduating in 2014 with two bachelor’s degrees in Art Education and Sculpture and Functional Art, Rebecca has spent the past eight years juggling her full-time career as an art educator and her passion for woodworking. The balance between real life and anyone’s true passion is always difficult and while Rebecca’s career in education is time-consuming, she always finds time to make her way to the lathe. After a difficult day in the classroom, she can’t think of a better way to relax and let off some steam.
Rebecca finds her inspiration in various living things and objects that she interacts with regularly. Simple things like insects or even coffee cups can send her scrambling for her notepad to transform her imagination into possible projects. She’s never far from sketching strange creatures or making lists of ideas she is longing to try. Her days of teaching Art 1, Sculpture, Ceramics, Jewelry, and AP 3D Studio Art are fulfilling and the passion she shares with her students is the same fuel that keeps her in her shop late into the evenings letting her imagination run wild.
Website: https://www.instagram.com/rebecca_degroot
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@rebeccadegroot
Demonstrations: