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

Model of Tsuru, commissioned for the new Ralph M Carr Judicial Center in Denver

We’re celebrating at the wowhaus studio after winning the public art commission for the courtyard of the new Ralph M Carr Colorado Judicial Center in Denver. We worked especially hard for this one, and the concept and presentation evolved collaboratively through a process Ene and I have honed over years of trial and error. We’re especially excited about the prospect of making another monumental sculpture to be cast in bronze and integrated into the landscape, where it will be accessible to the public and contribute to the daily lives of the people who work in the building.

Tsuru features a slightly larger than life bronze inspired by the Whooping Crane

Here is the text Ene wrote to accompany our presentation:

TSURU

“Conscience is the chamber of justice” – Origen

This artwork takes its inspiration from the crane, an ancient symbol of justice, peace, independence, and wisdom in many cultures. Among some Native Americans, this majestic bird was revered as an emblem of justice and intelligence.  For the Japanese, the crane (“tsuru”)  became a symbol of world peace in World War II as a Japanese girl tried to stave off leukemia caused by the bombing of Hiroshima by making 1,000 paper cranes. Sandhill cranes play a role in the local ecosystem, migrating annually through the Denver environs; many eagerly anticipate their seasonal arrival.

The crane embodies the independence and moral courage Ralph Carr brought to bear in resisting the internment of the Japanese during World War II.  The sculpture depicts a crane in flight, wings outstretched in a delicate state of balance, the stance echoing our quest for balance and equilibrium in the pursuit of justice.  Finally, the sculpture has additional symbolism: the Whooping Crane, the only other crane in North America, is an endangered species, protected by the laws of the land. In this way, the artwork embodies the vital role that the legal system plays in protecting not only our citizens but the fragile ecosystems of our earth as well.

The focal point of the courtyard will be a bronze sculpture of a Whooping Crane rising in flight. This graceful form, feathered wings outstretched to a span of 8’, will be sited on a rise of native Bluestem grasses toward the rear of the lawn, with a total height of 8’.

The sculpture will be framed by a circle of granite stone elements radiating in a 4’ wide ring around the piece.  Each of the cardinal points of the compass will be etched into the stone, orienting the viewer to their place in the landscape, just as the law orients and guides those seeking justice.  The granite used to create this feature was reclaimed from the Justice Center Building that was demolished to make way for the new building.  The artful repurposing of this material embodies an ethos of environmental responsibility; it also links the artwork aesthetically to the pavements surrounding the space, which is created from the same granite. Etched in the stone will be the phrase  “Conscience is the chamber of justice.”,  a quotation from the ancient Greek Origen.

Flanking the sculpture will be a series of four elegant sculptural granite benches, also cut from the repurposed granite, laminated to form a solid mass of stone.  Measuring  30”l x 18” h x 16” deep, these curved seating elements, which provide a place for respite and reflection,  echo the abstract form of a crane with wings outstretched.

Tagged: contemporary art, public art, Ralph M Carr Colorado Judicial Center, scott Constable, sculpture, wowhaus

view of San Francisco and the Bay from the Top of the Mark, looking north

When we lived in the city our lives were closely tuned to its pulses and flux. We grew and changed as a family at the pace and scale of the neighborhood, circles of friends, walks and talks, through layers still tangible and open-ended. To get perspective on urban life, we’d forfeit town for the beach, the mountains, the redwoods, a river. Like most of our friends, we’d seek ‘peak’ experiences in Nature and return re-energized, happy in our rekindled appreciation of home.

Now that our daily lives are settled in the countryside that once was our muse, and we’re tuned to the ground and the sky, patterns of blooms, cycles of growth and migration, we travel to town to find otherness and perspective, in a funny kind of reversal. Where our urban lives were once almost exclusively domestic, they are now public and temporal. We’re not quite tourists because it’s all so familiar, but we’re not quite flaneurs either because we’re not necessarily seeking anything exotic in that familiarity. We’re more like itinerant adventurers, looking for new Peak Experiences to contrast and contextualize the rural quietude. I guess we’re still town folk at heart.

The other day, Ene and I treated our daughter to afternoon tea at the Top of the Mark in San Francisco’s Nob Hill for her sixteenth birthday. We had spent the morning walking around Union Square, sitting in neighborhood parks and cafes and generally watching the world go by at street level. Sipping tea and munching finger sandwiches in a 1920’s hotel nineteen floors above the fray while listening to piped-in period appropriate jazz made for an unforgettable shift in scale in the course of our day, which got me thinking about how the role of public places shifts in the collective imagination.

It’s easy enough to simplify the transition in the scale of public places in contemporary life as increasing in height and distance over time- from the ground to the sky, but technology has more recently inverted that trend, or made it obsolete. The Gilded Age gave rise to the Jazz Age, that spawned the Space Age, that spawned the Information Age, and people abandoned public places for the most part in preference for their own living rooms, or so the story goes. But mobile devices are making the living room obsolete and appear to be helping fuel a renaissance in public life and architecture, although people are confused about what to do with it. What’s a more apt description of the post-information era we’re entering, the Noise Age?

Tagged: architecture, deep craft, san francisco, top of the mark