The following text accompanies an installation I made as part of the NOMO Exhibition we’ve designed and curated as the culmination of our residency at Kohler Arts. Over the past few weeks I’ve made fictional, yet plausible sculptural elements that support the idea that surfing has origins on the Great Lakes. I will provide more detail soon about the NOMO Exhibition, but here’s a preview of my “Legend of Lumberjack Surfing” installation:

The Legend of Lumberjack Surfing

“There is a little known legend that surfing has early 19^th century origins on the Western shores of Lake Michigan, separate from its more ancient roots on the islands of the South Pacific.

When timber rafts were floated down Wisconsin’s rivers to be shipped to far off urban centers, large slabs of wood occasionally broke loose along the lake and washed ashore. Enterprising lumberjacks and boat-builders often rescued the timbers by drifting them offshore, standing atop them and paddling them to beachfront workshops, occasionally attaching sails to ease the journey. When the surf was heavy, the maritime lumberjacks beached the timbers by riding waves to shore, steering with a long wooden paddle. Over time, the activity of riding waves became an end in itself, and the ‘lumberjack surfers’ learned to shape the rough sawn planks for better performance in the waves.

By the early 20^th century, the ‘lumberjack surfers’ adapted wooden boards to ride on land by attaching crude wheels to their undersides, thus inventing an early form of the skateboard. Many of these ‘trapper’s skateboards’ were made from stretchers originally used to tan wolf hides. By the middle of the 20^th century, experimental skateboards were commonly made from discarded, wooden alpine and water skis, which were rapidly being replaced by fiberglass.”

Another part of the NOMO Exhibition at Kohler Arts features longboard skate graphics I designed collaboratively, like the Northern Pike Longboard (above) drawn by Mary Whitehall and Zak Worth. The burnt/etched deck is part of a series depicting fish native to Lake Michigan

Tagged: appropriate technology, bike culture, contemporary art, craft philosophy, deep craft, DIY, furniture design, green design, innovation, kohler arts, longboard, public art, scott Constable, skateboard, slow design, surfing, sustainability, tall tale, traditional craft, vernacular architecture, woodworking, wowhaus

I made these lightweight panniers from salvaged materials for my Dahon folding bike

After our cross-country trek and a long overdue visit with family on the East Coast, Ene and I arrived in Sheboygan late last week for the final three weeks of our residency at Kohler Arts. We’ve settled into the guest cottage at the James Tellen Sculpture Garden, about 6 miles south of the town center, and a short walk to the sandy shores of Lake Michigan.

As we curate our NOMO exhibition and lay the groundwork for the NOMO EXPO, I’ve been commuting to town on my trusty Dahon folding bike. Over the weekend, I made a set of panniers when we hosted a public ‘Bike Bling’ workshop at the Kohler Art Center’s ARTery. The panniers consist of a lashed wooden frame, zip-tied to my rack, and saddle bags made from a recycled exterior banner, with duct-taped seams. While my panniers are intended to be temporary, they are surprisingly strong and lightweight, and I’m hoping the prototype will be improved upon by others during the EXPO.

To read more about our residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: appropriate technology, bike culture, contemporary art, craft, deep craft, DIY, green design, innovation, panniers, public art, scott Constable, wowhaus

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

I made my ‘indoor sawhorses’ to double as a table base

In all my years working with wood I’ve never felt the need to own or build a proper workbench. For a long time, I simply lacked the dedicated space and opted instead for working mostly outside, preferring to stage my work on sawhorses and collapsible building jigs tailored to a particular use. The scraps from one project would have an afterlife as the rudimentary furnishings to make the next. During the rainy season, projects would occasionally migrate indoors, so I made sawhorses as though they were furniture (pictured above). The prolonged lack of a dedicated bench opened up my thinking to the kinds of projects I would consider taking on, and I learned how limitations can be liberating.

To me, there’s also something inherently a little sad about a workbench. Like a well-intended New Year’s resolution, a workbench tends to be over-built and under-used, its function shifting too easily from utility to burden. Sawhorses, on the other hand, take up very little space, and both their construction and use are perpetually open to interpretation. Now that I have more space than I ever imagined, I still opt for sawhorses over workbench, a strategy more in keeping with the ever-fluctuating scope and scale of my projects.

Here are some ideal characteristics of good sawhorses:

• Lightweight
• Strong enough to stand on
• Stacking
• Flexible enough to conform to uneven surfaces
• Able to live outdoors for extended periods
• Constructed of recycled or scrap lumber

However you plan to use it, the most important feature of a good sawhorse is that it be owner-built; designing and making a sawhorse is the perfect, first furniture project.

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

traversing Greenland, 1930 (image: public domain)

I am truly honored that Russell Baldon, acting Chair of CCA’s Wood/Furniture Program, invited me to be the ‘Wornick Visiting Distinguished Professor of Wood Arts’ for Fall 2010. I’ll be teaching a studio-based ‘Atelier’ course for the semester that will give me an opportunity to share my studio and field research with students; the process will be cumulatively documented on these pages. It has been over seven years since I’ve taught at CCA and I’m excited to work collaboratively with students to prototype new ideas in woodcraft related to planning and executing a micro-expedition. Here is a brief course description:

MICRO EXPEDITION

Expedition into the unknown has played a perennial role in human history. Whether in the service of survival, expansion, inquiry or piracy, people continue to explore the world through the vehicle of expedition.

MICRO EXPEDITION will be a meditation upon the nature of exploration, with specific focus upon framing a contemporary sense of the unknown and developing the vessels related to a particular expedition, with emphasis on woodcraft. During the semester, students will plan a waterborne expedition, build a small fleet of craft appropriate to the waterway and intended goals, as well as any peripheral gear suitable to wood construction. The class will work as a collaborative atelier, learning the basics of wooden boat building through the construction of minimalist craft, to be launched for a 2-3 day voyage, with destinations determined collaboratively. Guest lecturers will include a Bay Area naturalist, a maritime historian and a naval architect.

Tagged: appropriate technology, california coast, cca, contemporary art, deep craft, expedition, furniture design, innovation, invention, Russell Baldon, scott Constable, woodworking

After Kevin Cherry welded up the steel armatures for our two fish sculptures, they were hot-dip galvanized and delivered to our studio compound for final shaping and completion. We have hired our friend Tami Stewart, a Berkeley-based sculptor/artist, to help ’skin’ the armatures with expanded metal lath and then apply layers of resin-impregnated, fiber-reinforced concrete, the substrate for a ceramic tile mosaic. Tami has been building natural science exhibits with Academy Studios for over 20 years, and we’re grateful to have her on board at this critical phase.

the anchovy sculpture’s galvanized steel armature, before the metal lath skin is applied

To follow the development of the wowhaus Abundance Project, commissioned by the SF Arts Council to be installed at the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, please click here.

Tagged: academy studios, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, tami stewart, wowhaus

I feel like Mr Hulot when I need to transition from studio craft to a business mode.

In craft work, quality is the result of acting in a way to increase the likelihood of desired outcomes. A maker is an active agent in each step of the process of bringing something into being, where every step is equally vital to the whole. Planning happens in real time and outcomes are continually adjusted and refined in a kind of feedback loop of sensory data, in response to predetermined criteria- a comfortable chair that lasts a lifetime and is as easy on the eye as it is on the environment, for example.

As my studio practice continues to thrive, my focus has shifted to managing multiple projects in a range of media with overlapping time frames. I’m finding a direct correlation between the management of craft and the craft of management, and have been enjoying applying some of the tenets I’ve distilled on these pages over the past few years, to the practice of business.

Tagged: business, craft, craft philosophy, deep craft, innovation, management, scott Constable, woodworking

Structurally, the new treehouse I’ve been commissioned to design will be a radical departure from the various tree-sited structures I’ve made over the years, but the spirit of arboreal living will remain in tact. Sited at the edge of a dense, second growth redwood grove, this treehouse will be more like a watch tower, aloft in the trees without making direct connection to any tree. Consisting of a rustic cabin perched atop a winding stair tower, the new treehouse will have more in common with regionally familiar water towers and silos, for which the foundational connection to the ground is most critical. After laying out the structure’s footprint in a clearing between clusters of coast redwood, our first step has been to take soil samples, which will be analyzed by a soils engineer to specify the appropriate footings for minimal impact to the root system.

carefully digging soil samples in the redwood grove

We dug about thirty inches deep and confirmed the soil to be Wilson Grove Formation, consisting of late Pliocene/late Miocene marine deposits, common to our neck of the woods. The structure will be supported by a perimeter of cast concrete, deeply secured to the ground with helical anchors screws

Tagged: deep craft, green design, scott Constable, sonoma coast, treehouse, vernacular architecture, wilson grove formation, woodworking

Gullies have been forming at low tides along Doran Beach, where shore birds feast on crabs and clams made vulnerable by the shallow backwash. I was surprised to find sea stars in the sand, their bright red bodies reflecting the morning light like stop signs. Drawn to a particularly bright patch, I was startled to discover a diver’s signal flag, especially before the abalone season officially opens.

A lovely nautical signal flag to add to the collection

Ochre Sea Star (Pilaster ochraceus)

Bat Star (Patiria miniata)

A Red Crab (Cancer productus) as yet undiscovered by birds

I love Doran’s unique drainage patterns

Tagged: aesthetics, beachcombing, california coast, california flora, deep craft, phenology, slow design, sonoma coast, surfing

Over the weekend my 14 year old daughter and I made matching longboard skateboards from a pair of vintage Riviera water skis we found in the barn. At about 49″ long and just under 6″ wide, the mahogany skis make wonderful, if somewhat narrow decks. We experimented with different truck configurations to test their performance, outfitting one with 169 mm Independent Trucks, and the other with 149 mm Krux. Both boards have soft OJ3 wheels for traction and low vibration. Aili thought the old school, translucent purple would offset the deck’s deep red and creamy white stripes.

After our initial test rides, the wider trucks on Aili’s board performed better, carving tighter turns with more stability. I kind of prefer the look of the narrower Krux on my board, but may swap them out for a more practical ride. The curved nose of the ski makes a great kick tail. I’ve seen longboarders ride with a forward kick, making sharp turns under speed by rocking in a crouch on the front wheels and pivoting the rear of the board by reaching back and sliding it sideways. It seems using narrower trucks might require harder wheels for the slide (and more agility than I currently have).

Tagged: aesthetics, contemporary art, deep craft, innovation, longboard, public art, scott Constable