The Rest of the Story
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome .
Well, if you have gotten this far, you want to know a bit more about Roth Farms, my work, and the journey that got me into woodworking. So, here's the rest of the story...
From Science to Art
As you read on the previous page, I spent most of my career as a scientist. I hold Bachelor's and Master's of Science degrees in Biology and a PhD in Ecology and Systematics. I have worked in academia as a scientist and professor for nearly 30 years. I have published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the evolution of cognition and the neurological mechanisms of behavior of birds, reptiles, and mammals. I love science and I love teaching. However, science and higher education are in real trouble, and I personally cannot continue down that path. Luckily, two aspects of my personality that I credit for my success as a scientist and teacher are my creativity and problem solving. I see things from different perspectives than most (for better or worse) and love to figure things out.
To this end, I also have a bachelor’s degree in fine art and have been making art my entire life. I have focused most of this creative outlet and artistic expression beyond my formal education on hobbies of painting (oils), drawing (graphite), and photography (mostly wildlife). I have sold a few things here and there, but had little to show for it beyond using my wildlife photographs to make my scientific presentations more engaging. That was, until 2018 when my ‘Earth Turtle’ photograph went viral (over 10% of the Earth’s population has seen this photo). My art took over the science, as the amazing behavior of one of my study animals was spread around the world, but I could do very little to educate anyone about it. To this day, a great deal of misinformation still exists online about this photo. ​
After the tornado went through part of my farm in rural Pennsylvania and knocked down some really nice apple and walnut trees (and a bunch of other things; luckily, we had no damage to the house or barn), I started thinking about other ways that I could engage with art. I hated to just cut up those beautiful trees for firewood, but I did not know what to do with them. Based on a suggestion from the former caretaker of the property (whom I happened to see at the local hardware store), I got a chainsaw mill and started making slabs. I taught myself to turn and make things out of these beautiful trees. I relied heavily on YouTube and some of the wonderful teachers that can be found there (mostly Jim Sprague and Kent Weakley). Oh, and of course I relied on lots and lots of trial and error.
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Because I had to “learn on the job”, I made many mistakes. I made safety mistakes (e.g., I cut one of my fingers nearly completely off on my band saw, shaved the top off of another with a grinder, and cut an artery in my hand with a chisel). I made mistakes with the wood (e.g., catches and terribly made bowls) and started trying to fix them with resin. I found that I could take those “problems” and turn them into something beautiful. More than a decade later, I am still working with wood from those (and many other) trees. I incorporate resin into most all of my pieces. And, as of this writing, I still have all 10 fingers.
Meet The Team
Check out the Shop
My shop is in my 1840's bank barn. I dry and store my wood and do all of my turning and general woodworking in the barn. However, the barn is not climate controlled, so I do most of my resin work in my basement.
I often start with bowl blanks that have been cut into discs, end-grain sealed, and then dried for at least 2 years on pallets in the barn. Here sit about 100 blanks from various species ready to be turned.
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Black walnut slabs from that original "tornado tree" ready to stack.
Our First Show
Our first show was a table at a fall maker's market at the library in Strasburg, PA in 2024.