notes for website

Functional furniture is everywhere.  What I strive for in my furniture and what I admire in that of others are pieces which can be sculptures.  Animated, balanced, interesting forms enhanced by color and grain.  Beautiful, natural materials used in innovative or unexpected ways.  Designs which are most of all beautiful, and yes, also very functional.

 Over the last 17 years, my work has evolved to be more organic both in design and technique.  I admire the simplicity and economy of the natural world where each material shows its full range of possibilities.  I collect ideas while hiking in the forest, on beaches, or boating on Puget Sound.  I am drawn to natural forms because they are not static:  they grow, spring, flow, fracture and erode.  Each of my designs starts with the idea of such an action, in addition to the function of the piece of furniture.  In my work I emphasize structure over ornamentation, curves over straight lines and smooth transitions instead of exposed joinery. 

 Many of the details of my furniture do not show up in photos:  textures, edges and curves that are meant to be touched more than seen.  I want my furniture to be fun to touch, sit in, eat off and live with for many generations.

 In the past two years I have started combining sculpted wood with natural stone.  Stone is usually such a precious material.  It is cut, ground and polished to remove its rough exterior and show off its inner beauty.  Yet I have never seen a polished stone that compares with the rough softness of a beach stone.  In these tables the wood is literally balanced by the weight of the stone, yet the design switches the usual qualities of the materials – the wood looks sharp and hard, while the organic shape of the stone makes it seem soft by comparison.

 In my “Wood Explosion” series I am concentrating on exploring the range of forms that can be created from a single piece of wood.  Each of these pieces of wood are cut part way through, and then expanded by steam bending, creating furniture with hardly any glue or joinery.  The nature of the wood itself restricts the curves to ones that are both dramatic and extremely fluid.   Unless, of course, they break.  However, if they bend and dry successfully, the wood itself is re-formed into its new shape.  This leaves the piece very stable with no internal stresses remaining.

Functional furniture is everywhere.  But, as a woodworker for 20 years I am drawn to furniture that is intriguing enough to stand alone as sculpture.  My goal as a furniture maker is to combine animated, balanced, interesting forms with function and comfort.  

I grew up in a family that valued good design.  I was taught that all objects, no matter how simple, should work well, feel good, be pleasing to look at and not have too many extra parts.  I have always enjoyed working with my hands and started building my first raft when I was 6 out of driftwood and washed up styrofoam.  Over time projects became more elaborate, but were almost always functional.  In high school and college I spent many summers on trail crews building trails, bridges and water bars with wood and stone.  My last semester of college was spent at Mystic Seaport Museum where I was able to take a class in boatbuilding.  This led to a couple summers as the first mate on some old schooners in Maine with some boatbuilding in between. 

I then apprenticed with an excellent furniture maker in New York.  During this time I realized how much I enjoyed the design freedom in furniture.  A table just has to have a horizontal surface a certain height above ground.  How it was held there was completely up to the maker.  I spent one more winter in Maine helping rebuild a small boat with a friend and then moved to Taos, New Mexico where demand for wooden boats was surprisingly low.

I moved in with the woman I am now married to, Me’l , who was in the process of building a passive solar heated home out of old car tires, tin cans and adobe.  The house was a bit rough at the time with no running water, a raw dirt floor and an open air outhouse, bit it felt luxurious after a Maine winter living on a lobster boat. 

I built a small workshop in Taos out of tires and started making furniture full time.  The next 6 or 7 years of woodworking were unremarkable – lots of production with a few more interesting pieces in between, but somewhere around that time I realized, like most woodworkers who have put in enough time, that I could make just about anything I could think up.  Not necessarily easily, but I could do it.  For me that was when woodworking became easier and designing became the real challenge. 

Since that time my work has steadily evolved to be more organic both in design and technique.  Forms in nature have always been my primary inspiration.   I admire the simplicity and economy of the natural world where each material shows its full range of possibilities.   I am drawn to natural forms because they are not static:  they grow, spring, flow, fracture and erode.  Each of my designs starts with the idea of such a motion, in addition to the function of the piece of furniture.  In my work I emphasize structure over ornamentation, curves over straight lines and smooth transitions instead of exposed joinery. 

Most of my work now fits into one of three groups.  One group is very organic, based on natural forms with influences of Antoni Gaudi, Danish modern furniture and Japanese aesthetics. 

In another group of work I am concentrating on exploring the range of forms that can be created out of a single piece of wood.  Each of these pieces of wood are cut part way through, expanded by steam bending and then stabilized with additional pieces.  The nature of the material itself restricts the forms to ones that are both dramatic and extremely fluid (unless, of course, they break).  However, if they bend successfully, the wood itself is re-formed into its new shape.  This leaves the piece very stable with no internal stresses remaining.

In the last few years I have also been making furniture that combines wood with natural stone.  The stones are beautiful but are also essential parts of the designs, as I use their weight to balance cantilevered tables or anchor table legs so they can stand independent of each other.

In 2001 we moved to Port Townsend mostly to be back by the water and boats.  It is a great place to work and I find plenty of inspiration on the water, along the coast and especially in the Olympic Mountains.   These days about half of the furniture I make is sold through galleries, at art fairs or through my website and the other half are custom commissions made to suit a particular client’s space.  I am very careful about the wood I use and almost all of it is from sustainably harvested forests or North American tree farms.  Recently I have been working on milling wood from trees in town that either are blown down or have to be removed.    My goal is to be using only local wood in a few years.  If you hear of any large trees coming down, please let me know.  I can be reached by email and am happy to have visitors at my workshop by appointment. 

My one apprenticeship in furniture making came at this time when I met Janis, a New York based furniture maker who designed and built beautiful one of a kind pieces for local clients.  If I had known I would still be making furniture 20 years later I would have stayed in her workshop longer than 6 months.  Luckily she was a great teacher and generous with her knowledge.  Janis had a client with a small boat that needed rebuilding and Chris, a great friend from college, and I started Blue Streak Marine.  We rebuilt that boat over the winter in an uninsulated shop in Maine while living on a broken lobster boat.  It was, like most boat projects, a tad late and a bit over budget, but we had a good excuse.  Chris went on to become an excellent boat builder, but I moved to New Mexico where demand for wooden boats was surprisingly low. 

Me’l was going to a craft fair every weekend to sell the clothing she made and she suggested that I make something to sell in her booth.  I sold my first patio chair that weekend, two the next, four the week after and in a month I had my own booth next to hers. 

March 23 - 29