Lyle has been involved in both woodworking and turning from an early age. His father, a pattern maker in Detroit, mentored him in the intricacies of wood, both structural and artistic. As a result of this background, he got his start in the woodworking field.

Lyle developed a passion for woodturning around 1989. His quest for learning technical skills for woodturning led him to work with the best and most respected masters in the woodturning field.

In recent years, from his home studio in Traverse City, Michigan, Lyle has turned his attention to woodturning and has quickly developed a style that is both innovative in design and technically challenging. While he began his work with traditional vessels and bowls, his creative energies and desire to cultivate his technique soon led him to attempt turning the human form. Requiring a multi-axis approach versus the more traditional single axis, the work is complex, yet delicate. The beauty of the human form allows the artist to employ grain elegantly.

Lyle resides in a beautiful corner of northern Michigan. He is a morning person and delights in viewing the sunrise from the screened-in porch overlooking the wetlands and pond behind his heavily-wooded, very private property near Traverse City, Michigan. It is an inspirational setting for his lifelong desire to create sensational sculpture.

Lyle said: "It's all about lifestyle, being happy with the work that I choose to do. I am blessed to be able to create my art work in a beautiful, peaceful northern Michigan setting. I use entirely northern Michigan hardwoods rescued from already cut trees from the cities and the country side around me. I select wood to enhance the rounded figurative work I do. The process I use to take these freshly cut green, wet logs, to the dry, stable sculpture is a laborious one, but I would not have it any other way. It is a labor of love. If I were to try to sculpt these figures in a solid block of wood they would check and crack. Instead I choose to make the forms stable thin walled vessels. It is a three month or more project to finish a piece.

I do not use live models but get proportions from art books and photographs of models from many sources. I, just last week ripped a page out of a magazine in the dentist office. I think the model was in a milk advertisement, but she had a sassy pose I liked. I am a student of anatomy now, but have no academic art training.

The equipment starts with a John Nichols lathe, but that only gets me started hollowing the inside shape of the torso forms. The outside shape is entirely done by hand off the lathe. I use a wide variety of rotary tools to sculpt the outside. The only hand work is in the final sanding at 600 grit sandpaper. Almost everything else is done with power tools of some kind."

"I would like to give Don Rutt Photography credit for the photos. It has beenthree or four years now since I stopped taking my own photos. I'm sure you can see the difference with the photos side by side."