Derek Weidman lives in rural Pennsylvania. Initially studying philosophy in college, but a born artist, he chose to follow in the path of his father who was a bird carver. When he began turning, he approached the lathe as a sculptor, primarily exploring and pushing the boundaries of multi-axis turning with a mixture of German ring turning added in. His main effort was trying to create a visually descriptive and versatile language born out of the arcing and circular cuts of a lathe. At the heart of his work, he treats the lathe almost as an unusual camera, with every subject passing through its lens adding to a visually novel circular zoo of wildlife.