1. Find a dark clear night. 2. Walk outside to a clearing. 3. Stand straight. 4. Tilt your head all the way back. 5. Open your eyes wide. 6. Stare up at the stars.
Tag Archives: craft philosophy
Fog Studies 3 (systems over routines)
When it comes to making things, I’m drawn to systems over routines. As a craftsman, my default system is tradition. It’s simply easier to keep one foot in the patterns of the past, especially if tradition is viewed as a very malleable template, a set of parameters as opposed to outcomes. Studying the grain of […]
Havens
Salt marshes flanking Bodega Harbor at dawn Since my mom passed away last spring I’ve been thinking about havens, having lost one so abruptly. The word ‘haven’ stems from the Old English ‘hafen’, a harbor, with deeper roots in the Germanic ‘haftjam’, to have or to hold, which also yields the words handle, hawk and […]
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 […]
Sand Patterns 2
Tsuru Update: Sculpting the Basswood Crane
The crane, roughed-out in layers of basswood, almost ready for shaping I’ve been laminating layers of basswood to shape into a large crane sculpture, to be cast in bronze as the feature of our Tsuru Project in Denver. With a specific gravity of 0.32 and non-directional, knot-free grain, the wood is lightweight, stable, and carves […]
Now Day
We met a kid drumming to the setting sun over Portuguese Beach Craving some time out of time to relax and refresh, we traipsed up the coast, rambled along riparian paths of redwood and red alder to remote gulches and beaches, snoozing, snacking and staring into the waves. We had a Now Day, checked our […]