The Wood-Turned ARtistry of Wilbur C. “Wib” Mock

This exhibition closed in 2022.

This exhibition explores the extraordinary craftsmanship of Zanesville, Ohio-based wood turner, designer, and businessman Wilbur C. “Wib” Mock (1930–Present). For over thirty years, he has used a variety of wood species to create beautiful, hand-turned bowls, plates, vases, and square, rectangular, and round lidded boxes. This intimate exhibition features examples from his remarkable artistic career and reveals a devotion and commitment to the artistry and craftsmanship of woodworking.

Wilbur Mock was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, into a hardworking farming family. He was an athletic child and worked hard on the farm until he contracted rheumatic fever at the age of thirteen. Although he recovered his strength, the illness altered his life and vocation.

“I always liked to work with my hands…Woodworking came naturally to me.”                                                                       Wilbur Mock 

In 1950, at the age of 20, Mock began a career in woodworking as an apprentice to traditional craftsman Sam P. Schrock at Schrock’s Woodcraft in rural Holmes County before joining a modern factory, Taylor Woodcraft in Morgan County. It was during this period that Mock further honed his design and draftsmanship skills studying architectural drawing. By 1954, he established his own woodworking shop in Zanesville. Mock Woodworking Co. specialized in custom residential cabinetry and furniture manufacturing for over thirty years before the company entered the custom commercial cabinetry market in the late 1980s. 

It was during this period that Wilbur Mock began creating hand-turned pieces on a lathe, first in a studio near his home and then at The Works in Newark, Ohio. Creating unique designs from distinctive woods, Mock’s pieces demonstrate a fascination with materials and his talent to capture the inherent beauty in each piece.

Working with local species native to Ohio, including Cherry, Walnut, Maple and Oak and exotic woods including Bubinga, Wenge, Sapele and Padauk, Mock transforms the material into works of art while preserving its natural beauty. His Walnut and Mahogany bowls, for example, are sanded numerous times with ever finer abrasives and compounds to achieve a desirable satin surface. They are then finished with a clear varnish that emphasizes the graceful lines of the woodgrain. The rims of his Ash live-edge bowls on the other hand, emphasize the coarse texture of the bark. Mock’s intricately patterned plates, which combine several varieties to form unique, highly stylized surface patterns make the most of the woods’ natural color.

 Wilbur Mock currently lives in Zanesville, Ohio with his wife June. The Zanesville Museum of Art would like to thank the following people who loaned artworks for this exhibition: Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur C.” Wib” Mock; Mr. Doug Mock; Ms. Margaret Mock; and Ms. Molly Koch.

Image Above: Wilbur C. “Wib” Mock, Plate 3, 2001, Wood, Hand-turned bubinga, padauk, and maple. On Loan from Doug Mock.