A section of the texture I’ve been carving into my crane sculpture.

I’ve learned a lot from studying sand patterns at the beach over the past few months. I’m always astounded at how such beautiful formations result from the erosive interactions of just a handful of elements- the density of different sands, slope of the beach grade, the continual play of surf and drying effect of sunshine.

I try to apply these lessons as I texture the fared contours of my wooden crane sculpture for our Tsuru project, cutting parallel channels that follow the arc of the grain over compound curves. The process takes concentration but is easy going with my very sharp 1.5″ Japanese gouge. When the wooden form is finally cast in bronze, the ridges of my chisel marks will be slightly highlighted with burnishing and their line patterns will recall the feathers of a large soaring bird while remaining true to the inherent tautness of the mother material.

Beauty becomes intrinsic to a thing only when its pursuit is incidental to the process.

Tagged: aesthetics, craft philosophy, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, sonoma coast, wowhaus

For the past several years, our preferred way to greet the New Year has been to indulge in a few days’ soak in the Calistoga hot springs at the tip of Napa Valley, just 30 miles east of the wowhaus studio on the other side of the Mayacamas Range. The annual ritual gives us a chance to recalibrate and slow down, modulating our body temperatures as we shift from pool to pool and follow the sun on its low arc across a clear winter sky. The days pass in pace with the conduction of heat and the evaporation of mineral-rich water, leaving us feeling like much simpler, happy organisms.

Tagged: calistoga, hot springs, napa, new years, wowhaus

When it comes to making things, I’m drawn to systems over routines. As a craftsman, my default system is tradition. It’s simply easier to keep one foot in the patterns of the past, especially if tradition is viewed as a very malleable template, a set of parameters as opposed to outcomes. Studying the grain of wood tells me just how best to put it to use.

I’ve been trying to make pictures the same way. Walking the beaches each morning I devote about as much time to studying the patterns of waves, sand, light and fog as I have to studying wood. I want my pictures to capture the ‘grain’ of these temporal interactions, which I distill into succinct categories depending upon the conditions of the day. I think of every wave as a cant cut from a fresh log, and relish the immediacy and simplicity of reporting on its rawness, everything reduced to just being present with camera in hand. Making pictures should be like catching a fish, or catching a wave.

Fog Studies 2

Foam Studies

Sand Patterns

Tagged: aesthetics, craft philosophy, deep craft, scott Constable, sonoma coast, surfing, woodworking

two of my Deep Deck ‘completes’, in cold-molded, natural elm (Ulmus Americana)

I designed my new series of Deep Deck longboards to be ideally suited for both town and country riding, and Aili and I have been enjoying putting ours to the test as we negotiate the two. Measuring about 44” x 9.5”, the decks are both long and wide, with longitudinal camber, cupped rails, wide trucks and gummy wheels, all contributing to a stable, smooth ride while maintaining enough ‘snap’ to carve under speed. The tail curves up after a shortened wheelbase for quick turns or pick-ups on sidewalks.

This is the third iteration of the Deep Deck concept in elm (Ulmus Americana) , and I’ve sold four of a series of ten to this design. I plan to keep producing this particular deck in limited editions using different species of wood, with slight alterations in form depending upon the properties of the material. After over two years of experimenting and prototyping, I think I have it just right!

Aili and I enjoy a leisurely afternoon cruise on the Joe Rodota trail in Sebastopol

Tagged: california coast, deep craft, longboard, scott Constable, skateboard, surfing, woodworking

A triad of Deep Deck longboards in American elm, ready for trucks and wheels

I’ve been making small batches of my Deep Deck longboard in the background of other projects in the shop, laying up a new deck each day, trimming, sanding and finishing the previous day’s cured laminations. Making decks at this scale has been a pleasant, fairly effortless task, a good way to wind down from carving the crane before I sweep up and call it a day.

I burn my ‘deep’ logo onto the undersides of the decks, and stamp the species and date.

In the coming year, I plan to scale up my Deep Deck production, and hope my limited production prototypes will help to generate interest. I’ll continue to make the decks by hand, but in larger batches, which should be easy once I invest in a few key tools to speed production. The decks will be offered in dated, limited editions, sequenced from locally sourced logs that I mill and dry myself; the scale of each tree will determine the scale of each production.

My next batch of decks will come from a 100 year old white oak.

I recently purchased the log that will yield my first large production run of decks, a giant white oak that was felled for safety reasons on the property of a historic, one room schoolhouse in Healdsburg, CA. It’s likely the tree was planted adjacent to the Felta schoolhouse when it was constructed in 1906. I look forward to researching the site and posting more about its history as the wood dries after I mill it in early 2012.

The Felta schoolhouse, built in 1906 in Healdsburg, California

Tagged: deep craft, deep deck, innovation, longboard, scott Constable, skate deck, skateboard, woodworking

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

the great white egret flock in the marshes around Bodega Harbor as they migrate south

The Dungeness crab season officially opened in Bodega Bay over the past weekend and the beaches have been teeming with life just after dawn- fishing boats on the bay, surfers on the south swell, pelicans skimming cresting waves, geese wedging overhead, sanderling and dowitcher combing the shoreline, suddenly strewn with bull kelp and crab carcasses. Ene and I typically walk a stretch of Doran Beach each morning with our dogs as the sun comes up, so we’ve developed a good feel for the patterns of migration, tides and seasonal shifts, most of our weather originating offshore.

Lately I’ve been drawn to the marshes around Bodega Harbor, where the great white egret takes seasonal shelter on the journey south. The birds typically cluster in large groups at the harbor’s shallow edge, where bulrush protects against wind and wave. Just as the sun rises over the hills to the east, the egret take flight in small groups and circle back, drying their wings and warming up in the sun, sometimes landing remotely to forage for breakfast. It’s a great place to study how these elegant birds move in flight; they take off, climb to soaring height and land within about 30 seconds, and the process takes about an hour, when the flock begins to disperse for a more substantial meal.

I’m preparing to carve a slightly larger-than-life sculpture of a whooping crane for our Tsuru project in Denver, and have been enjoying my morning field research before committing to a final form in wood. My sculpture will combine additive and subtractive techniques. I’ll laminate layers of basswood to approximate the shape of a soaring crane, then carve the form with chisels, rasps, adzes and draw-knives, probably adding a final layer in clay for texture. The wooden form will eventually be cast in bronze and, measuring about 8’ x 9’, will need to break down to transport to the foundry, so I’ll engineer a joint to allow for the wings to be separated from the outstretched body.

Tagged: california coast, california flora, deep craft, egret, public art, sculpture, sonoma coast, tsuru, wowhaus