Hello Don. Glad to see the forum up and running again, great job! 

Well I'm cheating a little. Below is a part of my bio from Etsy and Artfire.   

My name is Ian Jeffcock.  I was born and raised in Cornwall, England. My family immigrated to the U.S. when I was sixteen years old, settling in California. I was not used to the city life and soon moved to the mountains of  N.W. Montana, where I live and work in the small town of Eureka.  It is about 40 miles west of Glacier national park and 5 miles from the Canadian border.

    Although my first exposure to wood-turning was in school, in England, I did not pick it up again until six years ago. In the meantime, between raising a family and earning a living, I worked in various art forms.  These included stained glass, pottery, leather and bead-work . I always seemed to have the need to "create" something.

   Then one day I dusted off an old Shopsmith that had been my father's, and the addiction began. It was not long before I was craving a bigger and more efficient and -- oh yes -- a more expensive lathe. Then there were tools to buy and....and the addiction steadily grows.  With each turned piece I try to duplicate the high of that first taste.  Add to that the excitement of cutting into a piece of wood that would otherwise be relegated to the wood pile and discovering the beautiful grain patterns and colors that nature provides, and I was totally hooked.  I soon discovered that wood was the perfect medium for my artistic expression.