Prepare to be bowled over

Around this time of year, certain home accessories are looked at with sudden urgency. Before, they were just handsome things you happened to admire. Now, they take on a new identity as perfect Christmas presents - to give or to sneak on to your own list of lust objects.

The bowls made by Roger Bennett, a Dublin woodturner, are a good example. These finely-wrought pieces will take you by surprise. For one thing, they are new to the Irish crafts scene - until three years ago, Roger Bennett was a secondary school teacher who had never seen a lathe, never mind own one.

But even more arresting is their delicate appearance. The wood is fine, and finely balanced on the narrowest of bases, so that the bowls seem to float up from the surface on which they stand. And, unlike the many other hand-turned bowls, these are coloured - saffron, emerald, indigo and inky black. "I just enjoy playing around with colour," says Roger Bennett. "Some people think it can cover up mistakes, but in fact it's the very opposite. It will highlight them."

His story so far: a career break, evening classes in woodwork, instant passion for a new metier. He sold his first pieces in the Blackrock Market in 1993 and was soon accepted for the Craft and Design Business Development Course in Kilkenny, where the furniture-maker, Clive Nunn, was his mentor.

Now, he is back in his Dublin studio, working his wonders mostly in sycamore. This wood is thin and pliable enough to be dried in a microwave without cracking - a process which greatly speeds up production. It means he can experiment with new forms in the space of a few days.

Roger Bennett's latest pieces, due out for the Crafts Council Christmas show, will have gold leaf in their centre like a great, gilded eye; but for my money the simplest pieces are the loveliest.

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