Russell Clinard, Bloomfield, MI

The Huron Valley Woodturners are sad to report the passing of founding member Russ Clinard on August 31, 2021, aged 72. Russ was the driving force behind the creation of the Huron Valley Woodturners club, and its October 7, 2006 certification as a chapter of the American Association of Woodturners. This now long-standing group of folks gather together monthly to share safety issues, problems in their turning and new ideas and techniques to keep the ancient craft of woodturning alive and moving forward.

Together with Bert Olton, Russ gathered up to 35 members at any given time and Russ generously allowed the club to meet at his very large outbuilding on his property until the last several years when he needed to move. In his workshop, he had many lathes and tools that anyone interested in woodturning could come and use. He was always up for a challenge, like helping a rock-and-roll band member turn huge drums out of cherry logs, or how to use a router while turning.

Russ went out of his way to help anyone interested in turning, from children to traumatic brain-injury patients. He gave a young man a lathe when he couldn’t get one otherwise. He always did demos at our Holiday Sale/Benefit encouraging anyone watching him turn to try it out. In fact, he reached out to Eisenhower center, a local residential care facility for those with traumatic brain injuries, and invited their patients to come to his outbuilding to learn to turn as a form of therapy.

From that beginning, Huron Valley Woodturners members, including Russ, started teaching traumatic brain-injured people at the facility. Eventually, Eisenhower Center built us a workshop on-site so that their patients could have easy access to turning. Club members came twice a week for five years to teach until the pandemic put a halt to our volunteer work. One patient told us that this was the best therapy he had ever been offered because he could be creative and his emotional and physical problems seemed to disappear when he was turning.

Beyond making himself available at any given moment to come to the woodturning needs of a club member, Russ would bring apple pies or flowers to club members suffering losses. Or, he would stay in contact with a club member who was having health problems. He could empathize, having experienced his own issues and he wanted to be there for others in their disabling situations.

Russ was acquainted or good friends with many professional woodturners and he has been well-known in the woodturning world; in his shop, he hosted workshops by many of the world’s most accomplished turners.

Russ was sought after for his architectural turnings of balusters and other period turnings and was able to make multiple identical replicas for clients. His big Oneway lathe was a great source of joy.

Russ was a gentle teacher, a generous sharer of everything he owned, and an expert craftsman. Even after suffering a stroke, complications of diabetes, and unsteadiness on his feet, Russ was still turning vases, bowls, and urns and giving them to friends.

He was one of a kind. We will miss him.