Garry was born in Chatham, Ont., in 1938 and spent much of his childhood exploring the local Carolinian hardwood forests that were then quite extensive. His enthusiasm for forests, wood and woodworking were inherited from his father whose inclination to disappear into his workshop at every opportunity Garry emulates thoroughly.

Finding himself always just ahead of the baby boomer trends, he was cross-country skiing in the '60's, and running in the early '70's. He completed the first of 20 marathons in 1975 in a field of 160 and ran Boston in 1979, among several thousand entrants. Garry was not surprised, therefore, by the explosion of interest in woodturning as a craft and an art form that has occurred since he began in the '80's. Meeting attendance of the Ottawa Valley Woodturners, to which he belongs, has risen from 10 or 15 members to 70 or more each month.

Trained in chemistry, Garry spent 35 years at the National Research Council of Canada studying nuclear decay and developing methods and equipment for the accurate measurement of radioactivity. His work was challenging and satisfying and well received within the scientific community, but it is a new and delightful experience for Garry to witness the instant and emotive response provoked by his artistic work with wood. Nevertheless, his chemical and technological background figures prominently in his work, through his incorporation of dyes and metals in his turnings as well as the development of methods, such as the "Woodsong Woodlace" technique, which is featured in many of his pieces.

He is self-taught and began turning on a Shopsmith Mark 5 inherited from his father. Its shortcomings soon led to the purchase of a custom built lathe recommended to him by Maurice Gamelin, the Canadian woodturner from New Brunswick. This lathe will swing 25" and is quite happy with an off-balance, 75 lb hunk of green wood. Garry turns his green wood twice, roughing out to ½" to ¾" and then finishing when thoroughly dry, which gives him lots of opportunity to plan the details of the final piece. Inspiration has come from pouring over issues of Woodturning magazine and studying the work of Richard Raffan, David Ellsworth and Hugh McKay. He has received encouragement and artistic inspiration from members of his club, from Clay Foster and the work of Marilyn Campbell and most recently from Art Liestman. He is especially enthusiastic about the segmented work of Wayne Hall, who is also a member of the Ottawa Valley Woodturners.

Garry has sold his work internationally, largely through his website, www.woodsongstudio.ca. He especially enjoys contact with the people who purchase his art and share his appreciation for wood as an artistic medium. He also enjoys sharing his passion for the craft, which he does as a member of the AAW and as a participating member of WOW.

His entries in the Ottawa Wood Show in 2002 took 1st and 2nd prize in the open masters' category and Lee Valley Tools chose his work for the cover of their June 2002 catalogue and again for March 2003. A gallery of Garry's woodturnings can be viewed on his website (above) and on the Ottawa Valley Woodturners' website, http://valleywoodturners.userworld.com, which is a trove of useful information for woodturners.

Garry is indebted to his family, two very successful daughters, three wonderful grandchildren and most especially his wonderful wife of 44 years who is so patient with the obsessed creature who emerges from the studio, hanging with dust like an apparition, spreading it through her otherwise lovely home.