Two identical bases of green pecan, ready to receive the top, a giant slab of sycamore.

Whenever I design and make a new piece of furniture, I’m always keenly aware of how it will age, and how the piece might transform over time to encourage and support future, as yet unforeseeable patterns of use. I’ve been collecting choice local woods over the years, all neatly stickered in the barn, so my design process usually begins with rummaging through my piles for inspiration, making measurements and drawing directly onto the wood with white chalk. My primary criteria at this early stage is whether the piece of furniture I have in mind is the appropriate final destination for the wood- will it do the tree justice? I’ve always thought of my furniture as a way of extending the life of a tree, as a way of simultaneously storing and appreciating wood by putting it to good use; living daily life as an extension of making.

As I continue to collect and store local woods, and especially as I begin to mill trees myself, I’m becoming more attuned to the value of locally sourced, well-sawn, air-dried wood as a commodity. An increasingly scarce resource, fine wood is a good investment and increases dramatically in value, especially if it has the added cache of ecological responsibility, streaming from the urban forest, or as ‘horticultural salvage’. Because handmade furniture ultimately needs to compete in the marketplace with an increasingly sophisticated range of mass-market comparables, it can be challenging to offer a price point in proportion to the value of the material itself, which is a dilemma, even if the quality of the finished product is markedly higher. This is especially the case when ’studio furniture’ needs first and foremost to meet rigorous functional, as well as aesthetic requirements.

I milled grooves into the stickers for better air flow and to allow for movement.

While my way of thinking about wood-as-commodity has lived quietly in the background of most of my furniture design to date, I’ve been wanting do make a new body of work where the concept is front and center, both in the process of making and in the process of using the furniture. To this end, I’m grateful to my friend Cindy Daniel, who commissioned a ‘Community Table’ for Shed, her Healdsburg-based café/retail/community hub offering local foods, goods and quality wares. Shed is Cindy’s contemporary spin on the traditional country mercantile store, and I’ve enjoyed working with her over the past two years designing interior scenarios for the new building currently under construction, a large, open air metal structure designed by Mark Jensen.

My original thumbnail sketch for the Stickered Table

As much as my Community Table for Shed will serve as a gathering place in the café, it doubles as a process piece for the duration of the enterprise, establishing a kind of invented tradition. The table’s base consists of two nearly identical stacks of green pecan wood I recently milled from a dying tree, neatly stickered to allow the wood to naturally air-dry. The table’s top, a massive slab of sycamore, rests on top of the two piles, acting as a gravity clamp to keep the material from cupping. I milled V-grooves into the stickers to allow for better air flow and to decrease friction as the boards inevitably shrink. After one year, when the stock is adequately dry, the top will be lifted and the material removed and converted into functional wares for Shed, either to be used in the café or sold as product to customers. This first batch will likely make small table tops for the Shed café, slated to open in October 2012.. The two bases will then be re-constructed, stacked from freshly milled wood each year, that will in turn be made into a small production run of whatever item surfaces in the course of its drying.

I typically shellac and wax the ends of boards to prevent undo checking.

I like the idea of adding an element of ‘crowd-sourcing’ to the design development of an annual product, taking advantage of a constant flow of people gathered around the table while the material slowly cures beneath. I also look forward to maintaining an ongoing relationship with Shed as a kind of artisan-in-residence, collaborating with Cindy to design products that exemplify the Shed ethos.

Please click here to see the table with the top installed.

Tagged: appropriate technology, craft philosophy, deep craft, furniture design, green design, green woodworking, innovation, Jensen Architects, scott Constable, sculpture, Shed, slow design, sustainability, vernacular, woodworking

A good poem always ends
with an involuntary, shaky
inhale, a gasp

of sorts, but unique
to the occasion,
always a surprise,
the threshold of either
a tear or laughing, or
trying to make another poem-

(This is not a good poem)

Tagged: aesthetics, deep craft, poem, scott Constable

I’ve tried to map the five levels of consciousness detected during lucid dreams

I don’t normally lend much weight to dreams, but for the past couple of years I’ve been having a randomly recurring type of dream, where whatever the action, I suddenly become aware of myself dreaming, and can make things happen, like flying. On occasion, just before I wake up I have the presence of mind within the dream to be a passive observer, and pay attention to the actors and the narrative. The little glimpses I’ve had of this dream state have enabled me to count five levels of consciousness happening simultaneously within and outside of the dream:

1. The sleeping dreamer
2. The character(s) in the dream
3. The director of the action
4. The objective observer
5. The primordial life force

Upon waking, the five separate levels merge back together into one seamless state. It has me thinking that maybe one of the functions of sleep, or of dreaming, is to spread out and tinker with the multiple layers of consciousness so they work more harmoniously in the course of day to day life.

Tagged: consciousness, deep craft, lucid dream

One of my few surviving drawings of trees from first and second grade

My fascination with trees and wood dates from early childhood, when I would spend hours staring at trees in different seasons and trying to draw them as accurately as I was able, carefully mapping every branch, leaf or blossom. I remember getting lost in the process, losing track of the actual tree in front of me and having to make up branching patterns, overwhelmed at the endless variety of mature, deciduous trees like white oak. I remember thinking how my decisions to make new branches looked a lot like the tree’s ‘decisions’, which got me thinking about whether or not trees had consciousness. I’m still not sure about this, but try my best to think about the shape of the tree when working with its wood, making decisions with which I know the tree would agree.

A giant eucalyptus I discovered on an island near the mouth of the Russian River

Tagged: consciousness, craft philosophy, deep craft, scott Constable, trees, woodworking

sometimes I make up songs during a long walk

There is no better design tool than a good long walk. It may not always lead to creative breakthroughs, but does reliably clear the noggin and put things in perspective. Before I begin to think about a particular project during a walk, I usually find myself simply getting into the cadence and breathing of walking, sometimes making up phrases and melodies to help me focus. Whether or not I make progress with the project at hand, I always return to the studio feeling relaxed and optimistic, eager to field the inevitable challenges of the day.

Tagged: craft philosophy, deep craft, furniture design, scott Constable, woodworking

sketch of my original concept for a stair tower within a mock, old growth redwood trunk

I still think of the new cabin I’m designing as a treehouse, even though it will be more of a house on stilts nestled in a fairly dense, second growth redwood grove, making no attachment to any tree. My original idea was to camouflage the structure by making the stair tower resemble an old growth trunk, consisting of coopered redwood timbers housing a spiral stair (see above drawing). For practical and economic reasons, we’ve opted instead for an open, timber framed stair tower, more like a fire watch, with more emphasis on the the interior experience of the perched cabin itself.

I’ve enjoyed researching watch towers and houses on stilts, and appreciate my client’s focus and resolve to keep the program as simple as possible. It’s been a wonderful collaboration and we’re close to having a design ready to permit and build. I’m especially thankful to be working with Scott Hunter, Ph. D. P.E., whose design recommendations have added to the minimalist/maximalist ethos of the project. Continue Reading »

Tagged: california coast, deep craft, heidegger, hut, scott Constable, treehouse, vernacular architecture, watch tower

1/4 scale, schematic model of the Vermillion Rockfish, carved from pine and redwood

Between meetings for new wowhaus projects over the past week, I’ve completed two 1/4 scale models of our mosaic fish sculptures for the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission. I’ve borrowed a few techniques from boatbuilding to visualize the forms in 3d and consequently loft the structure to full scale. Traditionally, a marine architect would carve a ‘half hull’ model in wood to test a new shape, from which all sections and measurements would be made for full scale construction. The model would literally be cut into sections, which translate directly into construction plans and building jigs.

Ene made a lovely sample panel of the reflective, tile mosaic for the ‘anchovy’ sculpture (photo: Genevieve Masse)

To make the models, I laminated scraps of pine and redwood and roughed out the shapes with a bandsaw. Using small spokeshaves and rasps, I then shaped the contours of the fishes, knowing I would later add a layer of clay for surface details. Next I will cut the models into sections to make templates for the interior steel armatures, to be cut and welded at full scale, after approval by Artur Tan, our structural engineer. I’ve been enjoying working subtractively with wood in this way, and would love to do more purely sculptural work in wood, which lends itself so forgivingly to precise carving. The entire process has also been great practice for designing and making my radical board boat and shapes my thinking about future sculpture projects in general.

schematic sketch showing steel armature for the fish sculpture(s)

Tagged: contemporary art, craft, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, sculpture, woodworking, wowhaus