Grazing cattle keep the willow’s bob perfectly trimmed.
Interview With Matt Bua
I’m continuing to feature an ongoing series of interviews and studio visits with other makers/artisans/crafters. If you would like to introduce yourself and your work to a growing Deep Craft network, I invite you to visit the PARTICIPATE page of this site. Meanwhile, allow me to introduce you to Matt Bua, artist/builder.
Empyreal Sea Glass
I delight as much in finding a piece of blue sea glass during a drizzly walk on Doran Beach as might an exogeologist upon discovering tektite in the cratered sands of the Sahara or the volcanic dusts of Venus.
Black Acacia Blooms
The rains have returned and the air on the way to town is sweetened by newly bursting blossoms of black acacia (Acacia melanoxlyon). A relative of koa, wood from black acacia is dense and reddish-orange, with deep streaks of burgundy brown, and white sapwood. Properly cured, the wood is stable and resistant to rot and infestation, and is prized for its durability. I made a few tables for the Edible Schoolyard from black acacia, and have several remaining boards stickered-up, awaiting the right project.
Outbuildings of West Sonoma
My favorite buildings around here tend to be ruins, left to dissolve back into the land from which they sprung, not unlike orchard tree prunings or rusted jalopies in a culvert. There appears to be a consensus among local commercial farmers to not repair or maintain buildings once their function has been rendered obsolete by improvements in standard or technology. New houses or mobile homes are sited alongside rotting, derelict homesteads, with no attempt to bridge the old with the new beyond the practical exchange of preference. The old structures are left to the elements like seashells and begin to occupy the territory of landscape aesthetics.
Steady Hand of Chaos
There are rare times when I find myself aware of what I am doing or making as though I am watching myself and all else momentarily recedes. It is in this state that I am most attuned to the graceful and Steady Hand of Chaos.
Shop Shrine
I love my portable drawing cabinet, built by H. Gerstner & Sons in Dayton, Ohio about fifty years ago. It has developed into something of a Shop Shrine, a catch-all for small, meaningful, or valuable things- my treasures. I did not intend for this to happen, but now that I think of it I realize that most shops have some kind of unintended shrine, some place reserved for non-shop-related things, usually with kind of a feminine feel. I suppose the cliche of this is the ubiquitous pin-up. I think I will begin to collect images of these Shop Shrines. Please send one along if you know of any.
