Kansas University student Elliot Yohn used wood from the last elm tree removed for the Jayhawk Boulevard reconstruction project to create 57 unique bowls commemorating the university’s 150th anniversary.

The rings of the old elm tree create distinct, fingerprint-like swirls in each of the 57 bowls that Kansas University graduate Elliott Yohn made.

“Not every bowl is the exact same — they have a uniqueness,” he said.

Each bowl was chiseled from a 6-inch cube of wood cut from an elm tree that once stood on Jayhawk Boulevard. The elm was the last tree removed for the Jayhawk Boulevard reconstruction project, said Charles Persinger, director of university ceremonies and special events. The bowls are being made as part of KU’s sesquicentennial celebration.

The elm’s transformation was a slow one — the wood was stored for six months, milled into cubes, then cured for about a year before it was given to the art and design department, Persinger said.

And once the wood was in Yohn’s hands, it was a more than two-hour process per bowl as each cube was slowly shaped, sanded and then finished, Yohn said. Working as he had time, Yohn, who was paid for the project, said it took him about 150 hours over the span of four months to complete all the bowls. It was a great feeling to see all the bowls complete, Yohn said.

“It was awesome being able to say I was the one that made them,” he said.

Yohn, who finished the bowls in January, graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design, but said before the bowl project that it had been since high school since he’d used a lathe, the tool he used to make the bowls. Each cube was attached to the lathe, located in the common shop of the Art and Design Building, which spun it while Yohn chiseled out the shape, his favorite step in the process.

“It’s fun — it’s very meditative,” he said.

Yohn, who said he spends a lot of time wood working, said making the bowls offered a contrast to a lot of the work he usually does making furniture, which typically involves working with exact dimensions. Unlike a table or a chair, Yohn said, the individual shaping of the bowls gives a more artistic element to the project.

“They all have a handmade quality that way,” Yohn explained.

Elm trees once lined the sides of Jayhawk Boulevard, forming an arching canopy over the street. But by the 1970s, Dutch elm disease had wiped out most of them. The ongoing Jayhawk Boulevard reconstruction project is not only replacing pavement and sidewalks along the route; plans also call for replanting trees and restoring the canopy.

The bowls from the last old elm, which were engraved with the KU 150 logo after carving, will be given to donors in conjunction with the KU 150 celebration. Yohn said the best part about the gift is that the bowls are from a tree from Jayhawk Boulevard.

“It’s like giving them a piece of the history of KU,” he said.