Woodworker artisan, designer, craftsman in wood
10/04/2024
Found the flag under the landslide and stuck it into Old Green (which is starting to sound like an arthritic old man after this event). Proud of my community and I dare say that southern culture is the best in our republic.
08/02/2017
Cherry table and benches. One cherry log, four legs, mortise & tenon joinery, hand planed surfaces.
06/20/2017
05/01/2017
Detail shots of a recent table. Book matched walnut, in the round, design by-George Nakashima.
02/09/2017
Perfection is supremely uninteresting. This piece is special to me for a variety of reasons. It has technically been under construction since 2012 when I purchased the walnut log in the mountains of North Carolina. The log was chosen with this design in mind and features many lovely bullets and iron nails (tongue in cheek). It is a nod to George , whom I highly respect. It is also a piece that I made for my family, I made it the way I wanted, which is not the way I would construct a table for most customers. For starters I constructed the piece almost entirely using hand tools. This is not to say hand tools are better than machines, rather I simply enjoy the process of using hand tools. Perhaps it is my fine arts background holding a mark making or sculpting tool in hand. Indeed my fingerprints are all over this. It has not been sanded. All surfaces were hand planed giving a surface quality unlike a sanded one. Secondly the finish is very impractical for a table yet I prefer its simple, historical, natural, and ease of servicing values. Shellac and beeswax, polished with a cut off broom. The design can be disassembled with knockdown joinery. Legs are highly sculpted using a technique called coopering which I adopted early on at Haywood community college. I try to make the base more organic instead of architectural to be in harmony with the live edge tops. Finally this massive 8 foot long table features two sculpted benches to boot. We all come to tables and I look forward to the stories made at this one.
Perfection has been the enemy to being finished lately!
Long time no post. Many have asked so here is a brief update. This past summer I was offered a position as a High School Art Dept. chair. Most of my life experience has been teaching high school aged folk. I like it and I'm good at it. This also allows me some freedoms. Sure, it limits my time in the studio dramatically, yet it frees me from marketing pressures and the overwhelming pressure to make a reasonable living at this. I can make what my creative capacity directs and not solely commissions. However, I am still taking commissions. Yet now I am much more selective to the work I will select. In addition clients must be willing to wait much longer. Currently I have six commissions on my books, hence the lack of marketing here on Facebook! None needed. But, for those of you asking, I am still creating!
10/12/2016
Carved key k**b. Little details add joy and wonder.
10/11/2016
The four spoons on the right are my archaic sculptural non-practical spoons. The two on the left are made by proper spoon carvers Nate Chambers and Andy Mcfate. The awesome bowl is also made by Nate Chambers
08/31/2016
Long overdue studio time
08/25/2016
Some interesting information on Irish 'Creepie' stools by Dr Marion McGarry
07/16/2016
At least watch the trailers on this one.
http://arthousethefilm.com/
Don Freeman Art House Film In the documentary film Art House, photographer and filmmaker Don Freeman explores the handmade homes created and lived in by eleven distinguished American artists, shedding light on a unique architectural typology characterized by a D.I.Y. aesthetic, the appropriation of building techniques from ar...