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

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

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

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

cast iron relief sculpture on the sides of my woodshop stove

The little outbuilding I recently converted to a dedicated woodshop has a small cast iron stove. After installing a new roof with a pair of solatubes, the interior light is much brighter and I finally got a good look at the romantic scene relief-cast into the stove’s two long flanks, which I’ve scraped clean of most rust and built-up grime. Depicting a young couple, gesturing towards the mountain peaks arm in arm, the relief reminds me of a photograph of Ene and me at our wedding under a tent on the banks of the Hudson.

Ene and my ‘first dance’ at our wedding on the Hudson in August, 1989

As we enter the season of crisp clear days and frosty nights, and I get into a rhythm making morning fires to warm the woodshop and plunge into the daily rituals of planning projects and preparing my stock, I’m happily reminded of the larger scale motivations underlying the busywork comprising the day, and its cumulative effect, the dance of life.

Tagged: craft philosophy, deep craft, scott Constable, woodworking, wowhaus

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

Front and back of my last box of Blue Band Velevet #5572

As a daily comfort I prefer quality, vintage pencils, which I use in the course of drawing, writing and working with wood. I’m in a bit of a panic, down to my last box of Blue Band Velvets, manufactured by the American Lead Pencil Company in the 1920’s, that I inherited from my grandfathers (not sure which one), along with some drafting tools and hand planes of the same vintage. Luckily, I’ve discovered Bob Truvy’s website dedicated to the historic archive of pencils from around the world. Unfortunately, his collection is not for sale, so I plan to continue my search, knowing that contemporary pencil manufacture is not up to snuff. I’m even considering making my own as we prepare to fell a pair of incense cedar trunks on our property, the best wood for making high quality pencils.

our twin trunk incense cedar, limmed and ready to be felled

Tagged: aesthetics, bob truby, deep craft, furniture design, green woodworking, pencils, woodworking

Pippa Murray, Donald Fortescue and John Randolph, a-whittlin’ at the Headlands

Craving both a mental vacation and physical challenge, I decided to embark on an impromptu four day bike trip down the coast, eqipped with the barest possible essentials of food, clothing and shelter. My destination would be the Headlands Center for the Arts near the Golden Gate Bridge, about seventy or so winding miles down the Pacific Coast Highway from the wowhaus compound. My friend Donald Fortescue had invited me to participate in a ‘Whittling and Scrimshandering Soiree’ in honor of Herman Melville’s birthday, as a kick-off to his residency at the Headlands.

detail from Donald’s invitation

cycling past Bolinas Lagoon en route to the Headlands, about halfway there

Making the journey on bicycle proved to be great mental preparation for an afternoon of sitting, chatting and whittling among a crew of mostly familiar faces, all accomplished makers who have had some influence on Donald’s career as an artist (and vice versa). Choosing from Donald’s selection of carving knives and blocks of wood, we arranged ourselves in a circle in the ample, naturally lit Project Room and let our hands do the thinking while we told stories, laughed, snacked on gingery treats and tea, and took turns plucking Donald’s banjo.

Yvonne Mouser’s stools were perfectly suited to an afternoon of whittling

I’m confident we all found inspiration in the primal simplicity of sharp steel on buttery wood, a respite from the complexity that typifies our project-related daily routines.

To read more about the Whittling Soiree and to follow Donald’s project at the Headlands, please click here.

To see the Headlands’ photostream of the day, please click here.

To see Russell Baldon’s documentation, please click here.

Yvonne Mouser’s ‘Bucket Stool’

sunset at the Headlands

Tagged: deep craft, donald fortescue, headlands, herman melville, scott Constable, whittling, woodworking

I love my vintage Craftsman “60″ one speed drill

As challenging as it can be, it’s always wise to extract as much satisfaction from the task at hand as from what the task yields. This is especially true in production woodwork, where tasks are sometimes tediously slow, repetitive and physically demanding. My approach is to have particular tools dedicated to specific processes, allowing me to build a relationship with the character of a tool and a level of expertise in knowing how best to optimize its inherent attributes.

I love the vintage Craftsman “60” drill I inherited from my grandfather and have relished using it since I was a kid, but with its one speed operation and 1/4” chuck, it became somewhat obsolete with the advent of cordless drills, kind of like Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel. I could never justify using it out of sheer nostalgia, despite its no-nonsense aluminum casing and graceful mid-century styling. Gratefully, I’ve recently discovered that coupled with a wire brush, my childhood drill is the ideal tool for removing bark and stray fibers from the ‘live edge’ of my slab constructions; the speed is just right, it has just enough power but not too much, makes a pleasant sound, and warms to the touch. Plus, I feel a connection to my grandfather and recall happy times making stuff with my dad whenever I plug it in.

Tagged: aesthetics, craft philosophy, craftsman "60", deep craft, vintage tools, woodworking

I typically paint or wax the ends of green logs/slabs to ensure a slow and even curing.

I’ve begun to harvest some of the holly trees on our property in anticipation of making small bowls, spoons, candlesticks and other tableware for our inaugural Secret Dinner scheduled for this fall. The trees were probably planted about 30 years ago as an ornamental and they’ve grown to an unmanageable height, blocking light and clogging our gutters with their spiny fallen leaves. We’ll continue to make winter wreaths from branches of the remaining variegated shrubs, but I’m eager to try my hand at turning, break in an excellent set of Sheffield chisels and learn a valuable new skill.

In Celtic folklore, the holly tree symbolizes protection, and it’s an ancient tradition to plant them close to dwellings to ward off evil spirits while providing food and shelter for seasonal bird migrations. A healing tea can be brewed from the leaves of certain holly trees, and it was believed that throwing a stick of holly towards bears, wolves and wildcats will ward them away. The tree has also been thought to protect people from threat of lightning and severe weather. I will consider these themes as I turn the wood over the summer for an autumnal feast featuring foraged foods from the sea.

Tagged: california flora, deep craft, green woodworking, scott Constable, slow food, sonoma coast, sustainability, traditional craft, woodworking