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

My friend Sean Gavin mills logs on site with his portable Wood-Mizer

I spent an action-packed weekend milling my first tree, a mature pecan (Carya Illinoensis) that grew in the sandy soil of a nearby horse pasture. The tree was beginning to die and had been dropping large branches, threatening the safety of the horses. The property owner decided to take the tree down and I worked with my friend Kevin Paul, a local arborist, to devise a cutting strategy to optimize the wood for on-site milling. I then hired Sean Gavin’s portable mill and worked closely with Sean and a few friends milling sections of the trunk and large diameter branches to my specifications.

Kevin felled the pecan tree into a neighboring pasture for ease of access

Belonging to the hickory family, pecan is notoriously hard, even when green, and the cutting was tough on Sean’s blades. To make matters worse, we hit pockets of nails embedded in the main trunk on several occasions, probably the remains of a treehouse early in the life of the sixty year old tree. Despite the challenges we managed to mill well over one thousand board feet of wood in two short days, and I have a goodly stockpile of pecan wood ready to sticker up in the barn to dry.

We brought in the heavy guns to load the main trunk, weighing about 6000 pounds

I plan to use the smaller branch stock for a project I’m developing for Shed in Healdsburg, and will save the large slabs for future experiments in furniture-making. Measuring up to 16′ long and 2.5″ thick, the large slabs will take over two years to air-dry, which will give me ample time to develop a new line of tables and other furnishings that take advantage of the material’s inherent attributes. Like most hickories, pecan has a pale, creamy sapwood with streaks of honey and light brown, and a dark brown heartwood. Known for its extreme hardness, strength and durability, pecan is prized for making utilitarian items like tool handles, baseball bats, crates and pallets.

the upper trunk, boule cut to 2.5″ slabs

dark brown heartwood contrasts with the tree’s pale sapwood

The process of milling and curing my own material brings me one step closer to realizing my dream of managing a true, artisan scale, craft production, optimizing the capabilities of our rural studio compound. The next step will be to develop a marketing strategy to sell my wares in sync with the Deep Craft ethos. What’s most exciting to me is the challenge of reverse-engineering ‘design’ around the constraints of scale, site and local relationships, and enjoying every step of the process.

leaf and fruit of the pecan tree (Carya Illinoensis)

Tagged: aesthetics, california flora, craft philosophy, deep craft, furniture design, green woodworking, scott Constable, sonoma coast, watershed, wood-mizer, woodworking

The first in a series of coffee tables, a lozenge-shaped slab, 30″ x 72″ x 16.5″ high

I’ve begun making a series of coffee tables, encouraged by a recent commission from my brother in law to make one for my sister’s 50th birthday later this month. It’s always easier to make things in small multiples, with variation in material, proportion and construction style. I had honestly never given much thought to the idea of a coffee table, but am discovering that it’s the perfect form to experiment with some new ideas. I also like that the coffee table is inherently casual, functioning as a site for dining, reading, writing, as a footrest and even as seating. Plus, I have a stockpile of wood I’ve been saving that is ideally suited to the task.

The first table to come off the bench is for our own use, a lozenge-shaped monster I cut from a solid slab of locally-milled Monterey cypress, three inches thick. The table has bent wire legs I salvaged from a 1950’s era production table that I plan to tool up to replicate in my shop. To me, the table bridges a Southern Californian ethos of casual modernism with a North Californian ethos of forest stewardship and artisanry.

I like the ordinariness of the grain pattern; you can feel the girth of the tree

I like any piece of furniture to have a stance, an attitude

Tagged: aesthetics, coffee table, deep craft, furniture design, scott Constable, sonoma coast, woodworking, wowhaus

Two views of an unidentified bone, presumably from a large fish or a sea mammal

While running on the beach early this morning I was surprised to find a large, C-shaped bone in the sand, measuring about 8″ x 4″. My first thought was that it resembled part of a skate, a familiar inhabitant of the surf off Doran Beach. I don’t know much about bones, but its symmetrical shape suggests either part of a jaw or pelvis, and the tapered ends imply connection to some flexible part or hinge. I’d love to hear if anyone knows what it is.

Doran Beach is often loaded with colorful sand dollars at low tide this time of year

Tagged: beachcombing, california coast, deep craft, phenology

Freshly harvested kelp drying on the garden fence

For a while after the recent tsunami in Japan, Californians were aflutter about iodine, the primary antidote to radiation exposure. In researching sources of the element I discovered that the Japanese consume about five times more than most of the rest of the world, largely because seaweed and fresh fish figure so prominently in their daily diet. Interestingly, there is a strong correlation between the Japanese consumption of iodine with both their decreased rates of cancer and increased lifespan. I also learned that the production of the chemical element, iodine, was a cottage industry in Ireland and other coastal regions in the nineteenth century, where kelp was prevalent and abundant throughout the year.

Because our local beaches yield heaps of kelp, I’ve experimented over the past few years with using it as a material for making things, with varying degrees of success. I’m now more interested in kelp as a food source, and have been foraging the flat strands and drying them in the sun for cooking. Eventually, I’d like to make a batch of pure iodine as an experiment, perhaps as a way of staining/preserving wood. Historically, iodine has be extracted from kelp by reducing it to ash, boiling and filtering the ashes, and extracting the pure element by mixing it with hydrogen peroxide.

Tagged: appropriate technology, deep craft, iodine, kelp, tsunami

It’s been a bumper year for wild plums, and our few trees, bent to capacity with ripe fruit, have been feeding the birds, raccoons and a solitary bobcat, who harvests from our rooftop at night. We’re eating our share as well, and Ene has already prepared a few gallons of ‘plum brandy’ that should be ready for Christmas.

On or way to the beach we pass the Pozzi Ranch, some of Straus Creamery’s grazing meadows, and several smaller family farms, all of who have been cutting hay over the past few weeks. Just as the grasses turn gold, they’re cut into rows where they sit for a week or so before being baled. I love the haphazard architecture of the bales as they cure before being collected and loaded into barns. The ride to the beach smells of sweet cut grass drying in the sun.

Salmon Creek and the Russian River are still feeding the Pacific at high tides, so the surrounding beaches are loaded with driftwood. This year I’ve discovered some surprisingly sophisticated structures built of driftwood. I’m not sure if it’s due to an abundance of good material after later than usual rains, or to an increase in leisure and anxiety given the current joblessness crisis.

Tagged: aesthetics, california coast, deep craft, phenology, pozzi ranch, slow food, sonoma coast, straus creamery, wowhaus

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

the 30′ long table returns home, after weathering 5 years at the Sonoma County Museum

When we first moved our home and main studio to West Sonoma County five years ago, Ene and I were commissioned to participate in an exhibition called Hybrid Fields at the Sonoma County Museum, curated by our friend Patricia Watts. We had been milling several storm fallen Douglas Fir trees on our property at the time and proposed installing a 30′ long harvest table constructed of rough timbers for the exhibition, to be sited on a lawn adjacent to the museum. We called the project Tree Trust True and organized a public feast featuring local foods that all grow on trees for the exhibition’s opening. The event lasted just one afternoon and evening, but the table remained at the museum for the next five years, becoming a popular spot for lunches and impromptu gatherings, weathering like a giant piece of driftwood.

The table is constructed of stacked and pinned timbers, topped off with 6″ thick slabs

We recently decided to bring the table back home, return it to the site where the tree originally grew. With the help of our capable friends Hus, Rob and Angel, we disassembled the table, loaded the parts onto a 16′ flatbed truck and reassembled it back at the wowhaus compound, where it will serve as the primary site for an ongoing series of secret dinners we’ve been planning, featuring guest chefs and handcrafted tableware. The first of these is tentatively planned for October First, with chef Leif Hedendal at the helm.

Angel, Rob, Hus and Scott unload the truck

Angel, Hus, Scott and Rob assemble the table, pinning the timbers with long screws

Installation complete, the crew takes a break to savor Ene’s homemade Pozole

ENE’S POZOLE
• Saute one chopped onion, 1/2 tsp cumin and salt and pepper to taste, in olive
oil. Add to the water in the pot, as described below:
• Place a whole chicken in a pot and add enough water to fill the pot double the
height of the chicken + 8 sprigs of fresh oregano; simmer for at least 2 hours,
preferably longer, at least until the meat falls away from the bone.  Add water
as needed along with 4 cups of canned hominy. Simmer until flavors blend.
• Clean the meat from the bones; add more fresh oregano and cumin to taste, if
desired.
• Squeeze in fresh lime to taste or serve as a garnish

Serve with the following as garnish:
• Chopped Avocado
• Fresh lime slices
• Sliced jalapeno peppers
•  Salsa
• Chips or toasted tortillas can be eaten on the side, but we like to add them to the soup as well….

Enjoy!

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, furniture design, innovation, leif hedendal, pozole recipe, scott Constable, slow food, sonoma county museum, wowhaus

I photographed my new Deep Deck overlooking Tomales Bay on my way to SFMOMA

I delivered the first in a series of Deep Deck skateboards to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art yesterday, where they will be on display as part of Stephanie Syjoco’s Shadowshop project, opening on Novemver 20 through May 1, 2011. Below are a montage of images and text that will be displayed alongside the Deep Deck, which I will be custom making to order for the duration of the exhibition:

The Deep Deck is the first in a line of bioregional products by Deep Craft, a hybrid brand-movement-ethos developed by artist/designer Scott Constable.

The Deep Deck concept emerged from Constable’s diversified efforts to create a regional vernacular of sustainability, tapping the unique physical and cultural geography of the Sonoma Coast and San Francisco Bay bioregions. Studio investigations and field research are archived on Constable’s deepcraft.org site, culminating in his ongoing Deep Craft manifesto.

Each Deep Deck is handcrafted according to an individual’s bodytype and riding style, utilizing unique native Californian hardwoods culled from ‘horticultural salvage’.

For Shadowshop, the Deep Deck is being produced as a limited edition, numbered series in American Elm (ulmus Americana) with wood milled from a cache of reclaimed street trees characteristic of the urban forest. Styled after the classic longboard borrowed from surf culture, Deep Deck is designed mainly for cruising and transportation, but is well suited to carving a gentle country slope, or simply hanging on a wall. To discuss a commission, please contact Scott directly at scott@deepcraft.org.

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, green design, innovation, longboard, scott Constable, sfmoma, shadowshop, skateboard, sonoma coast, stephanie syjuco