Jim is a self taught woodworker and turner and has been operating as a full-time bowl turner for the last 12 years at his studio in the Mulmur Hills near Mansfield, Ontario. Prior to devoting his time to turning, Jim owned and operated a cabinet making business. He has been active with organizing several fine craft shows and co-operative studios, participated in numerous juried shows throughout Ontario, is a lifetime member of the Ontario Crafts Council and offers wood turning classes at his studio.

Jim's work is found in several art galleries in Ontario and California as well as at the Guild Shop in Toronto.

Jim believes that his most important mission is to reveal the qualities and characteristics of wood. If the wood has a split in it, a disfigurement or an unusual colour, he will emphasize these characteristics. He has found that spalted maple makes stunning platters and for bowls there is nothing quite like birdseye maple. Jim is well known for his spectacular segmented stick bowls made of lilac, sumac and grapevine. Of these, Jim says "Lilac is in a class of its own but sometimes has to share the limelight with grapevine, red pine and balsam poplar."

A significant feature of his work is the use of reclaimed wood, giving new life to old, historical or sentimental pieces of wood. Using the concentric ring lamination process, he has made bowls, vases and platters from doors and window frames, docks, flooring, stair railings, joists, decks, cottages, even home siding. Sometimes he has access to wood beams from buildings that were built 100 to 150 years ago from wood cut from trees that may have been more than 200 years old. These evoke a sense of wonder - one imagines the dark, quiet forests where these trees were mere seedlings.