PASSIONS - Natural, ethereal at every turn - Handcrafted wood bowls -- perfectly imperfect -- are the soul of a collector's modern home.

"The bowls represent what is absolutely natural: wood, grown and aged," says Ehringer. "Sometimes there are holes where there were knots. To turn a bowl with less than perfect wood is an art. To get it to expose its flaw without breaking its thinness is a wonderful act to witness." Some of her bowls are as small as a silver dollar with sides as thin as a dime's. Others are large enough to hold a family meal or conceal a possession, their original intention.

Ehringer, a businesswoman who owns the Saddle Peak Lodge restaurant in Calabasas, bought her first hand-turned bowl in 1959 in Kauai. She used it at home to serve salads. Years later, while visiting New Zealand, she saw another exquisite bowl. Although she did not buy it, "it ignited something in me," she says. "I thought later, 'the next time.' " Since then, whenever she travels she looks for one to add to her collection.

Her latest find, from the Hawaiian island of Molokai, is a foot wide of pale Norfolk pine with knotholes forming a smiley face. A few of her bowls were sculpted from wood that was still green; over the years, as the wood shrunk, their openings changed from perfect circles to ovals and oblongs, which adds to their appeal. "They are wonderful to look at and touch," says Ehringer, running a finger around the lip of an asymmetrical bowl; a swollen half-ring marks one side like a scar. "I feel an elemental connection with the wood."

Jan Peters, who has been selling artistic woodwork for more than 20 years at del Mano Gallery in Brentwood, says, "There is a natural human response to wood, and we intrinsically understand it. A vessel speaks clearly by its simple beauty. A good artist brings that to light without overshadowing it."