Phil Holtan favors the humblest, nastiest trees in the forest.

“Cancerous, wormy, rotten wood,” he says, with relish. “The most spectacular pieces come from wood I’ve dragged back from the grave.”

Phil calls himself a “maker,” one who draws energy and delight from working with his hands. Now on the edge of retirement, the pastor – who’s serving right now as an interim in the pulpit of Moorhead’s Bethesda Lutheran Church – has pursued his twin passions for more than 35 years: A man of God, a man of people and finances and ideas by day, he turns on his time off to woodturning. And he’s an evangelist there, too: As a teacher as well as a turner of wood, he’s shared his love of the centuries-old craft with some 1,500 students over past decades, fueling a virtual regional renaissance in the eons-old craft.

Phil explains what sets the techniques he loves apart from others who work with wood: “Woodworkers are the ones who build furniture, cabinets … barns. Woodcarvers? They’re more pure artists, carving faces and creatures by hand with a chisel.

“Woodturning involves using a lathe,” he says. “The lathe is stationary. It’s the wood that moves as we cut away and shape it.”

Rather than smooth, perfect boards or logs, woodturners like Phil look for Nature’s gnarled missteps – burls, the rounded, knotty growths on the trunk of a tree that hold within them surprising and wondrous whorls, grain and character. They share the beauty within as bowls, goblets and other utilitarian pieces brought to lovely life with a combination of Nature’s own craftsmanship and human hands.

It’s a satisfying release from the intellectual and emotional challenges of his profession, Phil says – one that balances the day-to-day demands of his calling as a minister.

“I’ve always loved working with my hands,” he says. “In my profession, it can be very difficult to evaluate whether or not I’ve done a good job. In my studio, though, I can look at a bowl, hold it in my hands, and know immediately that this is good.”

If you’ve watched a tall, mustached, white-haired gentleman demonstrate woodturning at the Norsk Høstfest, the Phelps Mill Festival or Fargo’s Downtown Street Fair, chances are you’ve already glimpsed Phil’s work. Sheltered in an open tent, he shapes and shows his handmade pieces.

While he’s created hundreds – thousands – of smooth bowls with distinctive rough bark margins, his signature piece is what he calls a “kransekake tree” – a slender cone of maple or cherry wood dressed, from top to bottom, in a graduated set of concentric circle. Resembling the Norwegian wedding cake of the same name, Phil’s kransekake trees symbolize everlasting happiness.

Raised on a dairy farm in northern Iowa, Phil grew up in a family short on dollars but rich in the skills that raised makers. He and his six brothers, he says, took pleasure in fixing their tractors, building the family’s house and other practical projects. “Dad was a carver and a weaver. He built looms,” he recalls. “Our mother wove rugs. Making things was a big part of our lives.”

Inspired by growing up in a church community of people “who took care of each other and the world around them,” he decided to become a pastor himself. “I like every part of it. I love the scholarship and ideas. I love working with the kids. I love the music,” he reflects. “I’m a lifelong student of the Word.”

He interned in Mexico during his term at Luther Northwestern Seminary. After graduating, his first challenge was determining what to do next. Would he answer a call to New Guinea … or North Dakota? Phil, who (with wife Merrie Sue) is passionate about travel, still chose the pulpit of a small church in Makoti, N.D. Three years later, he became an associate pastor at First Lutheran Church in Minot for a span of five years.

Then the couple and their three children moved to Fargo-Moorhead, where he spent the next 23 years as campus pastor at Concordia College. For the past decade, Phil and Merrie Sue have lived on the lake in Perham, Minn., where he served Calvary Lutheran Church. He retired last spring … briefly … before accepting the temporary appointment at Bethesda.

The Holtans now divide their time between an apartment in Moorhead, where Merrie Sue teaches in MSUM’s School of Communication and Journalism, and their Perham home, which they plan to sell. His woodcrafting still takes place in the spacious studio he built himself by the lake. There, when not turning wood and dreaming up new projects, he tutors three students at a time in weekend hands-on workshops ten times a year.

“Three is the perfect number of students,” he contends. “There’s a great deal to learn when you’re getting started.” Over the ages, woodturners built their skills as apprentices before striking out on their own. Phil aspires to compress some of that essential learning in his teaching, from selecting the wood to the proper way to hold the blade as the wood spins. The stakes can be high: “With a table saw, you cut off fingers. With a lathe, it’s your face at risk. Safety is a big, big part of my teaching. You’ve got to protect your eyes.”

Phil had no mentor, though, as he learned his craft. Back in Minot, he was “going a little crazy,” he says, “with not making things.” He was mesmerized by a demonstration of woodturning at one of the very first Høstfests, which originated with the church where he was serving. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”

There was no active woodturner around to teach him. Instead, he read some books and taught himself the craft, bit by bit. It was the long way around – one of the reasons he’s become such an enthusiastic teacher himself. “It took a long, long time to learn stuff that way,” he observes. “If I’d had me, it would have gone a lot faster.”

Disciples who now follow in his footsteps have far more learning opportunities. In addition to Phil’s own demonstrations and classes, they can participate in MinnDak Woodturners’ monthly meetings in Moorhead, as well as similar guilds that now flourish in Fergus Falls and the lakes country.

Phil’s website – philholtan.com — has all kinds of woodturning resources, too, including the 15 10-minute videos he produced for Arvig Communications’ lakes-area cable channels.

He’s winding down his Perham studio, now that he’s here in Moorhead. “People ask me if I’m selling my equipment,” he says, smiling. “I tell them, ‘Well, I’m down to just eight lathes.’” That means seven are now in fellow woodturners’ shops. But there are plenty left.

For now, the balance is just right. In addition to his short-term pulpit assignment, he divides his time between teaching and turning. “At one time, I toyed doing this full-time,” he confides, “but I don’t like to eat that much sawdust and chips.” He likes the blend of projects: “From summer to Christmas, I make and sell a lot of stuff. After Christmas, I teach. There’s a natural ebb and flow that I like very much.”

Too, his alter ego as a woodturner offers him a respite from the role of parish pastor. “When people know you’re a pastor, they put you into a little box,” he muses. “They talk to you in a certain way.

“When I meet people as someone who teaches and works with wood, instead of as a pastor, I’ve had wonderful adventures. I’ve had fascinating conversations and shared great stories.

“And I’ve heard the best jokes … jokes they’d never tell me otherwise.”