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

The treehouse will be hidden in a remote redwood grove, beyond a Gravenstein orchard

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

Metal artist Kevin Cherry fabricates the steel substructures for our fish sculptures

With minor revisions, the San Francisco Arts Commission has approved our clay/wood models of fish sculptures for the new, Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, and we are rapidly proceeding with full scale fabrication. Using templates generated from sections of the models, we had discs cut from plate steel, and steel tubes bent to form the ’spines’ of the two fish sculptures. We’ve hired Sonoma-based metal artist Kevin Cherry of Steel Cherry to fabricate the welded steel substructure, which will be hot dip galvanized once the longitudinal stringers are in place, before we ’skin’ the skeleton with fiberglass mesh, impregnated with a cementitious resin.

Petaluma, CA based Van Bebber Brothers bent the 4″d steel tube ‘fish spines’

-To learn more about the evolution of the wowhaus project, ‘Abundance’, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, public art, scott Constable, steel cherry, van bebber, wowhaus

I mistook this washed up signal flag for a large sea star (might be jetsam?)

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

our matching longboards made from vintage water skis

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

I’ve always liked to use chalk when roughing things out on wood. Lately I’ve taken to scouring the beaches during negative low tides in search of seashells for making my marks. The Pacific Razor Clam is ideal, softer than the East Coast equivalent, but hard enough to make a clean scratch, and loaded with calcium carbonate to leave a crisp white line.

Tagged: aesthetics, california coast, deep craft, green design, scott Constable, sonoma coast, sustainability, traditional craft, woodworking

I can relate to the work style of a 1930’s American cabinet shop (public domain)

After over a year of design development with the architect and client, selecting logs of deodar cedar and having them custom milled and cured to outfit the interior of a new guest house down the coast, I’m regaining perspective on my original thinking behind how I approached the project: Shuffling the Tree.

As my cabinets, doors and built-in furnishings take shape, each part of the tree finds its corresponding use in built form, the planks having been painstakingly graded for grain character, color and structural integrity. The process of hand sorting thousands of board feet of air-dried, rough sawn lumber has been slower than I had anticipated, but well worth the effort, and I’m feeling less overwhelmed as I convert my neatly stickered piles into glowing wooden furnishings. I’m taking extra pains not to use any laminated sheet materials, constructing all casework in solid stock.

I’ve found that designing and building this way automatically bestows a building with a feeling of belonging-ness, as though the house stands in honor of the tree it displaced. When the material is locally sourced from the waste stream, diverted from horticultural salvage that might otherwise be burned as firewood, the building’s interior has the added benefit of reducing carbon emissions to the atmosphere. I call my approach ‘bioregional vernacular’, and I’m glad for the opportunity to test its scalability.

cabinets of deodar cedar w/face frames, stacked up while I prepare doors and drawers

To follow my progress on designing and building the guest house interior, please click here and scroll down.

Tagged: craft philosophy, deep craft, furniture design, scott Constable, slow design, sustainability, traditional craft, vernacular architecture, woodworking