I am from the Pacific Northwest and am a member of the SW Washington Woodturners, the Cascade Woodturners Association, the American Association of Woodturners (AAW).   I am a professional woodturner providing custom woodturnings, commissions, classes and I author articles for several woodturning publications.

I encourage anyone interested in the art of woodturning to read the books, shop manuals and teaching guides written by and for manual arts instructors from the early 1900’s.   The focus of these was how to teach students woodturning as a trade and livelihood.  Interestingly, each course begins with spindles, starting with a humble cylinder.    Download one of these vintage books yourself, starting with A Course in Wood Turning, By Archie S Milton and Otto K. Wohlers from 1919. More links to vintage books can be found below.

• 2026 Tennessee Woodturning Symposium
• 2018 and 2024 AAW Symposiums in Portland, OR
• Arizona Woodturners Association (Phoenix, AZ)
• Cascade Woodturners Association (Portland, OR)
• Mid-Columbia Woodturners (Tri-Cities, WA)
• Northwest Woodturners (Portland, OR)
• Olympic Peninsulas Chapter (Bremerton, WA)
• Oregon Coast Woodturners South (Newport – South Beach, OR)
• Seattle Chapter – AAW (Seattle, WA)
• South Puget Sound Chapter (Puyallup, WA)
• Straight Turners (Sequim, WA)
• SW Washington Woodturners (Vancouver, WA)
• Willamette Valley Woodturners (Salem, OR)
• Woodturners of Olympia (Olympia, WA)

Here are links to some excellent old textbooks on teaching and learning woodturning.

A Course in Wood Turning
A course in wood turning | Library of Congress (loc.gov)

Elementary Turning
Elementary Turning : Frank Henry Selden : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Wood Turning
Wood Turning : George A. Ross : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Art and Education in Wood-Turning
Art and education in wood-turning; : Klenke, William Walter, 1888- [from old catalog] : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Wood-Turning
…Wood-turning. | Library of Congress (loc.gov)