Today we’re talking with Ashley Harwood of Ashley Hardwood Woodturning. Our first ever woodturner on the podcast, Ashley started about 9 years ago shortly after going to art school for sculpture and installation art. Knowing that she wanted to create things for a living, she originally thought she would start with glass blowing. However, after taking a woodturning class with her father, she decided to dive into the wood community.
She now travels all over, teaching woodturning classes and creating wood-turned art!
When first starting out, Ashley displayed her work at the Charleston Farmers Market. Soon, she realized that there was also quite a bit of interest from people in woodturning as a hobby. So, she wisely added teaching to her repertoire of income generation and began traveling and teaching wood-turning classes throughout the U.S. 
Loving the ability to be her own boss, work with her hands, and take a hunk of wood and create something unique and amazing are all of Ashley’s biggest motivators. We loved her comment that, “She’s so happy with the freedom of being her own boss, she’s not even sure if she’d be able to be someone’s employee anymore!”
Show Highlights:
- In every city, there is a local chapter for the American Organization of Wood Turners.
- These are non-profit clubs that ask 1-3 people to visit and teach in their city.
- Ashley holds classes in her own shop as well as travels all over the U.S.
Marketing Efforts
- Ashley has 66,000 Followers on Instagram
- She posts almost every day and showcases current projects that she’s working on as well as items she personally thinks are interesting
- In 2012 the Charleston City Paper did a mini video documentary on Ashley and posted it to Youtube. Not thinking it would be a big deal at the time, this video now has over 2 million views? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz5_8k6w_yY
Contact Ashley
Instagram: @ashleyharwoodturning
Websites:
http://ashleyharwood.net
http://ashleyharwood.com
http://turningnative.com
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