Arborigin is a collaborative project that brings together artists, designers and artisans to produce fine products from a single elm tree salvaged from Chicago’s urban forest. We invite those interested to submit a proposal to use some of our inventory of cured lumber and hope to bring the finished products together for a pop up store […]
Category Archives: material lifecycle
Deep Craft video
I’m proud to post the final episode of Kirsten Dirksen’s three part documentary she filmed in one day this past winter when she was visiting from Barcelona, home base for her company, faircompanies.com. This is my favorite one and I think it does a wonderful job of presenting the core of my Deep Craft philosophy. […]
Stickered Table for Shed (process)
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 […]
Milling the Pecan Tree
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. […]
Holly Meets the Sea
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 […]
Running Fence Revisited #1
A section of the fabric from Christo’s ‘Running Fence’ (1976) is used as a backdrop for the Salami Toss at the Occidental Fire Department’s annual summer barbecue. When Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized their seminal Running Fence project in West Sonoma County in the mid-1970’s, they traded materials used to construct the 24 mile long fence […]
Casting in Bronze
pouring molten bronze into molds for our series of sculptures for Sunnyside Conservatory in San Francisco We were thrilled to witness the bronze casting of our series of sculptures for the Sunnyside Conservatory Menagerie yesterday at Berkeley’s Artworks Foundry. It has been an honor to collaborate with artisans skilled in the ancient art of lost […]