“Table legs,” sighs Tib Shaw, chief cook and bottle washer for the American Association of Woodturners’ Gallery of Wood Art. “For too many people, that’s the only thing they think of when they think of woodturning. That’s why having this space is so important — we can show visitors how much more woodturning can be.”

The gallery, located inside downtown St. Paul’s historic Landmark Center, is a stately, gracious space with a small gift shop and two generous exhibit rooms. The Gallery of Wood Art’s parent organization, the American Association of Woodturners — which, despite its name, boasts members around the world — is home to more than 13,000 woodturners, beginners and expert professionals alike.

The principle behind woodturning is deceptively simple: You begin with a piece of wood, affix it on both ends to a lathe; rotate the wood and carve. Each finished piece has discernible axis points, points of connection to the lathe, once you know to look for them.

Wood comes to the artist with an irrevocable history, with stories of season and weather and surrounding flora and fauna written into its rings. Each chunk is a character, fully formed, and it brings a specific set of conditions to those who set out to “turn” it: variations in tensile strength and density, pliability or brittleness as determined by the relative greenness of the piece or point of origin on the tree. Is it an aromatic species? Is its color uniform or rippled, light or dark? Is the wood wormy or its grain knotty?

“It’s like a dance between the turner and the wood, working with this material.” Unlike clay, she says, where you decide what you want and mix the material accordingly, “working with wood is more like a conversation.”

Looking through “Art from the Lathe,”  selections from the American Association of Woodturners’ permanent collection, I’m particularly struck by the sculptural play and wide ranging, distinctive artistic sensibilities evident among the pieces scattered about the room. Some pieces in the show are “pure,” created entirely on the lathe; others are made from a mix of other processes and materials, turned on the lathe, then sandblasted, burned, coated with layers of polymer or segmented and re-assembled like a puzzle.

The sheer variety, not to mention the skill and cleverness behind the execution of each piece, is all the more impressive when you consider those a priori demands of the form, peculiar to working with wood and lathe.

If you visit, be sure to give the charming selection in the little exhibit, “A Gathering of Spoons II,” its due — some of the spoons are whimsical, others are downright elegant; the imaginative re-interpretations of the sculptural possibilities in this everyday utensil are simply wonderful.

“Art from the Lathe” runs through November, but “A Gathering of Spoons II” closes Sept. 16; both exhibits are on view at the American Association of Woodturners’ Gallery of Wood Art in Landmark Center, 75 Fifth St. W., St. Paul, Minn. 651-484-9094. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.