Like a lot of makers, a significant portion of my time involves working in solitude, or at least in focused isolation on the task at hand. My best work results when I enjoy this part, but I’ve learned how to trick my way into the appropriate attitude to just get the job done if need […]
Category Archives: studio process
Bull Kelp of the South Swell
The seasonal south swell has returned to Doran Beach, piling up shapely waves along with lashings of Bull Kelp. Last year I was intent upon taming the kelp for a wild-crafted, bioregional chair. My dream remains intact but this year I’m more seduced by the waves. enormous tangles of kelp accumulate along the shore after […]
Back to the Studio
a satisfying pile of offcuts accumulate as I make chairs for Becoming Independent Getting back to the studio this week makes me grateful that my work as an artisan requires such a range of activity. After a couple of weeks of project-related proposal-making, site visits, speaking engagements and interviews with the press, I’m delighted to […]
Bottling the Cider
the Golden Orb Weaver (Argiope aurantia) sets her net in the breezy autumn garden Like all the other creatures marking this time of year- spiders weaving webs around the garden, hungry deer grazing roadside, the long-billed Dowitcher foraging the beach or geese flying Southeast in their familiar, honking ‘V’- we’ve been busy making provisions for […]
Fish Sculpture Progress
1/4 scale, schematic model of the Vermillion Rockfish, carved from pine and redwood Between meetings for new wowhaus projects over the past week, I’ve completed two 1/4 scale models of our mosaic fish sculptures for the Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission. I’ve borrowed a few […]
Entropy Schmentropy
I doubt the rancher who owns this tiny roadside outbuilding shares my enthusiasm for the patterns of blistered paint on its corrugated walls. He’d probably agree that it needs repainting and was a poorly executed job to begin with, or that the galvanized steel was best left exposed to the elements without any paint at […]
The Week in Bloom
stacks of cedar dry in the warm September air I counted five Kestrel perched along barbed wire as I wound down Marshall-Petaluma Road towards Tomales Bay from Evan Shively’s mill. I had been inspecting the deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) Evan milled for my latest interior design commission, and I was delighted to find the fragrant […]