In our region the Bay Laurel grows prolifically in the understory of second growth Coast Redwood. When mature, the tree can grow quite large and shapely and its wood has a rich, nutty brown grain I use frequently because of its availability and versatility. Yet the Bay Laurel is considered by many a weed. It grows quickly, takes root in many soils on practically any grade, and it can carry the dreaded Sudden Oak Disease.I’m beginning to experiment with coppicing several Bay trunks, or stools, on our property. Coppicing takes advantage of the rapid early growth of multiple, straight new trunks from the stump or stool of a single tree. This process occurs naturally when a tree falls and remains alive in the forest, but can be cultivated more predictably. A well-managed coppice, harvested on regular cycles, greatly prolongs the life of a tree and yields an almost endless supply of material. This winter I plan to cultivate enough coppiced Bay Laurel to use in a chair production in about 3 years, using naturally grown poles to prototype in the meantime. If my project proves successful, I hope to develop similar coppices on sequential cyles on neighboring properties to scale up production.
{ Monthly Archives: November 2008 }
Newforest Institute
Ene and I met a new old friend over breakfast on our last day in Maine. Andrea Read is the founder of the Newforest Institute, located outside Brooks, a charming crossroads town about ten miles inland from Belfast. She invited us for an impromptu tour of the site on our way to Boston, and we met at a newly reconstructed, historic house that serves as the Institute headquarters and housing for student interns. The project consists of three linked properties totalling about 300 acres, combining town frontage with fields, forest and edible gardens. Andrea has ambitious plans to demonstrate principles of Permaculture on a large scale. She poetically considers the project a ‘land-based community restoration’.
We strolled the property surrounding the house with Andrea and her sprightly eight year old, Jack, and discussed how to convert the existing barn into a thriving ‘beehive’ of a design studio. I plan to talk to Andrea about the possibility of introducing a coppicing operation as part of my desire to develop a regional chair for Coastal Maine.
Symposium Decompression
In reverse of the usual order, Ene and I kicked off the symposium with an open-ended panel discussion around my concept of ‘deep craft’. We staged the conversation as an old-fashioned town hall meeting and opened the floor to an audience of over 60 participants, encouraging the free exchange of ideas as the Deep Craft concept took shape. Knowing the people of this community around Penobscott Bay would have a lot on their minds, I thought it best to clear the air of any and all preconceptions around the meaning and role of ‘craft’ before introducing the nascent Deep Craft ethos at the core of our work as Wowhaus.
The evening took some lively turns, with many salient points made. At one crucial juncture, we were all treated to a lengthy discourse on the history of Craft by Peter Korn, director of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, who is writing a book on the subject. Occasionally, the conversation devolved into the (pointless) distinction between art and craft. It was all very instructional to me and provided a unique opportunity to learn how best to position ‘deep craft’ as a new idea, in response to the ongoing controversy surrounding notions of ‘craft’. Towards the end of the panel discussion, John Bielenberg asked if I could wrap things up by saying a few words about the origins of ‘deep craft’ in my thinking. It seemed premature to get too specific because I wanted people to have the opportunity to draw their own conclusions from the dialogue and the remaining symposium, so I ventured only vaguely into how Deep Craft is more of an ethos than a practice.
After the symposium, which is summed up in a brief article by Ethan Andrews here, I had a chance to decompress on the flight back to California and jotted some notes related to John’s question:
- Drawing on the summation of craft as a communication model as well as a production strategy, Deep Craft seeks to release ‘craft’ from its formal constraints in favor of its underlying value system.
- Deep Craft is an open source system of values that may be applied to making anything.
- Deep Craft is not confined to the studio practice of an individual, but is scaleable to a community.
- Deep Craft is not the product of individual self-expression or actualization. Rather it is the process of acting as an agent in improving one’s surroundings. While Deep Craft serves self-interest, it is motivated more by an innate desire to do good. The depth of the craft is related to the depth of the improvement. I use the term ‘craft’ to align it with the potential for the hand to act as an agent of change in this process, without the aid of elaborate tools or technologies. Craft can be seen as the summation of human-powered production models throughout history, each with their own political and social histories and implications. Deep Craft draws on these where appropriate as templates to overlay on present conditions, as an ethical standard, but only as such.
Deep Craft at Waterfall Arts
We have been busy preparing for our first Deep Craft Symposium this weekend at Waterfall Arts in Belfast, Maine. I finished the pencil post bed and it awaits my parents’ arrival tomorrow for a trial run. Meanwhile, Ene had been on call to support her sister as she gave birth to a healthy girl, born yesterday. We have a new niece!
The symposium promises to be a lively and timely complement to our activities on the home front. We will host a panel discussion this Friday, and follow up with a presentation of our work followed by a hands-on workshop on Saturday.
The panel will be a kind of summit meeting of ideas underlying craft practice, and related potential regarding sustainability, community and commerce. Most often, public forums on craft focus on exposition/exhibition, featuring technical or market related strategies. Our Deep Craft Symposium will focus on ‘why to’ as opposed to ‘how to’; on what makers think about- on what are the intended outcomes of craft practice and related obstacles, challenges and rewards. Because we work in relative isolation, this will be a great opportunity to share insights and experience in a public conversation with like-minded folks on the other coast.
Please come by if you are in the neighborhood!
Election Day Bed
I spent Election Day in the shop making a pencil post bed as a distraction from the culmination of my combined worry and excitement for the returns of the day.The bed will occupy the ‘Outlaw’, our guest home/vacation rental where my parents will be living when they arrive next week from Philadelphia for an extended Thanksgiving stay. I’m using materials at hand and improvising the design around two complimentary motivators:
The first of these has to do with only using the tools that enable me to stay sharp but detatched at the same time, using my entire body in a simple gesture. Cutting long tapers on the bandsaw is a little like practicing Tai Chi combined with driving across Wyoming, and my thoughts can meander as my body tends to the work. Next I’ll hand plane the tapered surfaces and move on to cutting a ‘bead’ detail by hand on the rails. I will leave the wood raw with all toolmarks visible to avoid the toxic stress of sanding and finishing.
The second motivator is the feeling I want the bed to communicate, especially in light of the forward momentum of this most historic election and the waning legacy of ineptitude and cynicism in its wake. I want the bed to feel light and high, but also noble and solid in a minimalist way, using materials with an intentional frugality, whose mass and volume are suggested by the emptiness of the air around the bed. I want the lines to reflect a focused, loose hand in balance with the story of the grain of the wood, occasionally revealing the wane or live edge of a board to articulate a detail. I’d like the bed to conjure an early American rusticity informed by a more global awareness, primitive colonial with hints of African sculpture and French baroque.
hot squash soup on the walnut headboard
As I make the moves in my shop, I’m soothed by the smell of my hot squash soup simmering on the stove, and the blend of acorn squash, hot peppers, garlic and curry combines wonderfully with the rich overtones of white oak as it yields to the blade.
Hot Squash Soup
Bake one large or two small acorn squashes, sliced in half with pads of butter in the cavities, in the oven at 375 until tender. Scoop out the flesh and let cool. Chop one clove of garlic, one hot chile pepper and one banana pepper and saute over medium heat in olive oil and butter. After about 4-5 minutes add curry powder to the vegetables and stir the mixture thoroughly. Add the squash, blending it with the pepper and garlic, and bring the mixture to a low boil. Add 2 tablespoons of chicken broth and about a half teaspoon of salt, stir, cover the mixture and reduce the heat to let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Blend the ingredients in a blender and serve with a dollup of Greek yogurt and several sprigs of fresh cilantro.
First Rains
The first rains have arrived and Ene planted a cover crop of fava beans as a soil amendment and delicious late winter staple. Our garden was devastated by deer over the summer while we were travelling, but we were able to harvest a few pumpkins, acorn squash and late season chiles that survived the onslaught.
I like to make stews and soups in my shop kitchen during the rainy season as a backdrop to making furniture, and have an idea for a hot squash soup cooled with fresh parsley and yogurt.