There You Are by Stephen Gleasner
Artist Name: Stephen Gleasner
Title: There You Are
Details: circa 2010 – Plywood, 30″ x 48″
Why It’s Notable:
While most woodworkers try to hide the layers of plywood, Stephen Gleasner embraces them. He carves into the face of plywood to reveal patterns reminiscent of a topographic map, then applies dyes to the surface to enhance the design.
Secret Carpentry by Maskull Lasserre
Artist Name: Maskull Lasserre
Title: Secret Carpentry
Details: circa 2011 – 26″ x 6″ x 2″
Why It’s Notable:
An axe, to most people, is an unremarkable object – just an axe. However, if you take any item and embellish it, it becomes more distinct and meaningful. This piece reminds me that anything has the potential to be a work of art.
Why Knot by Kino Gurin
Artist Name: Kino Guérin
Title: Why Knot
Details: circa 2011 – Smoked Oak Plywood, 58″ x 28″ x 28″
Why It’s Notable:
When I think of plywood, I think of flat sheets that are good for building cabinets. I might consider bending and laminating plywood to create a moderate curve for the top of a chest or a round furniture part, but form the plywood into a knot? How this piece was made is not apparent.
The sharp contrast between the smoked oak faces and light-coloured edge is also nice.
Crab Desk by Christy Oates
Artist Name: Christy Oates
Title: Crab Desk
Details: circa 2009 - Plywood, maple veneer, steel hinges, acrylic paint, wood dyes
Flat: 48″W x 35″H x 1-1/4″T
Opened: 48″L x 14″W x 35″H (Desk) and 13″L x 13″W x 17-1/2″H (Stool)
Why It’s Notable:
This piece merges wall art with furniture and takes collapsible furniture to a new level. A few folds and flips transform a picture of a desk into an actual working desk complete with a stool. When not needed, both the desk and stool disappear into the wall.
Phantom by Graft
Artist Name: Graft Lab
Title: Phantom
Details: 3.00m x 1.20m x 0.75m (approximately 9′-10-1/8″ x 47-1/4″ x 29.5″) circa 2010. Made of “Carbon- or glass fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP/GFRP)” which is “no thicker than 5-6 mm”. (Information provided by the stilwerk limited edition design gallery.)
Why It’s Notable:
Impossible is simply a challenge for the free-thinking. That’s my way of thinking, anyhow and I’m always looking for ways to push the envelope. Defying gravity (visually, at least) is one way to push the limits. By extending the “tablecloth” down to the ground and eliminating legs, this table appears to float.
PS: Nana, who works for the stilwerk limited edition design gallery informed me that Brad Pitt recently bought one of the nine tables made.
Although 100 Bowls has no affiliation with the fabulous and inspiring Lark Books’ 500 Series, I think that the idea of making one bowl each day for one hundred days is very interesting and I’m looking forwards to seeing a new bowl in my inbox every day.
What, you ask, is “100 Bowls?” In a nutshell, 100 Bowls is a challenge concocted by Houston artists Renee LeBlanc and Clark Kellogg. The idea is for each artist to produce one hundred bowls over the course of one hundred days. The completed bowls will then be donated to Empty Bowls Houston, an annual event supporting the Houston Food Bank.
This year Empty Bowls will be held on May 26, 2012, at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Artists participating in the Challenge include Steve Campbell, Clark Kellogg, Renee LeBlanc, and Mak Taing. Stay tuned for entries from these four brave gluttons for punishment as we count down towards May…
- Clark Kellogg
So far, the first three are of wood and of a very similar shape. Will the shapes evolve or morph? Will other mediums be used? What kind of experimentation will we see? We will only find out as each new day arrives.
Click HERE to see the bowls by Clark Kellogg and company.
There’s less than a week left until Christmas, so of course you’ve got all your gifts ready to be wrapped, right?
Wrapped Gifts with Poplar Ribbon and Bow
Last year, I discovered a new way to decorate the wrapped package – wood shavings! Read the original post HERE.
Poplar Bow
Everybody has an idea of the perfect Christmas and more than likely, a tree is part of that vision. In my household, decorating the tree has always been a family activity. We work together to put up the tree and adorn it with lights, garland and our favourite ornaments. We each have our favourite decorations and as you may have guessed, many of mine are wooden.
Here are a few examples of wooden decorations in the house of my friend Morgan. (Morgan lives in Phoenix, AZ. He brought me down to Phoenix in 2008 to complete the tabletop for the bubinga table, Flow). I hope that this article will give you some ideas and an excuse to spend some time in the shop. See if you can get your friends and family members involved too – afterall, Christmas is about togetherness.
These white doves are both simple and elegant. Cut out the wing and the body, glue the wing to the body and paint them white. A small hole through the wing allows a loop of thread to suspend the bird from a branch. If you are making more than one, try stacking a few bodies (or wings) together and cutting them out together.
This angel is a little more creative. To form the arms, legs and wings, soak thin strips of wood (veneer or shavings) and let them dry while rolled around a form. White glue holds thin strips of wood together with a wooden ball for the head and craft supplies for hair and a tiara.
There are literally hundreds of designs you can cut out for Christmas. For complex designs with fragile points and narrow sections, plywood is a good choice because it doesn’t have any short grain. Baltic birch plywood with thick plies and veneers is a good choice for work like this. Like the dove, this design lends itself well to stack-cutting. The snowflake is suspended by a loop of red ribbon through one of the cutouts.
While these trees certainly don’t belong on the Christmas tree, they certainly deserve a mention.
The trees are made from a single piece of straight-grained wood. Starting from the top, begin to take a moderately heavy cut with a chisel oriented bevel-down and stop before the chip breaks free. Work your way around and down the tree, taking progressively longer cuts until you have a full tree. Finally, shape the tip of the tree and the base. Be sure to undercut the base to ensure it doesn’t rock. This does take some skill and is good chisel practice, so why not give it a try?
I love making gifts. I really do. I was raised to believe that anything hand-made will always have more meaning than something store-bought. While there may or may not be a capital investment for materials, the real investment is the time and thought to develop and produce the item. For me, making gifts is a fantastic opportunity to explore processes, designs and materials.
Balancing wine bottle holders are a simple gift for the wine-lover. Give one with a bottle of wine but without any documentation and see how long it takes the recipient to figure out what it’s for.
Balancing Wine Bottle Holders by Tim Charles
Turned items can be quick and are also often practical. Pens and pencils are always popular. For that extra-special someone, consider making a box for a pen-and-pencil set.
Pens and Pen Box by Mike Bardell
Stoppers for wine bottles allow more freedom in design than pens – this one has green and gold glitter set in clear resin atop hard maple.
Bottle Stoppers by Adam Baum
Screwdrivers are also fun to turn. (I’m constantly surprised by how many people don’t have a screwdriver around.)
Dogwood Screwdriver by Chris Wong
Paperweights are probably the most unrestrictive things you can make. Use your imagination. A small paperweight can double as a playing piece for a board game.
Paperweight/Playing Piece by Chris Wong
Cutting boards can be as simple as a single board planed smooth, or as complex as you can dream. Every household needs at least one good, wooden cutting board.
Cutting Boards by Larry Maykin
Looking for something a little more obscure but still fairly quick? Last year, I scrolled Diamond Challenge, a 65-piece puzzle. This one will keep anyone occupied for hours.
Diamond Challenge by Chris Wong
If you have a little more time, a cribbage board is a fun, practical gift. (Okay, it’s more fun to use than to make and you’ll want to have a drill press for one of these!) If you choose a simpler design, you can easily make one in a day. There isn’t much better than a gift that forces people to sit down for a while and just have some fun and enjoy each other’s company.
Live-Edge Cribbage Board by Chris Wong
Regardless of what you make, take an extra few minutes and add value by embellishing the item with a little carving, paint, or pyrography. The idea is to make it unique and personalized. I like to use an engraver to dedicate the project to the recipient. And of course, I sign my name too.
In the age where so much of our surrounding environment is mass-produced, who wouldn’t like something unique, made just for them?
(Last year, I wrote a similar post HERE.)
Artist Name: MTH Woodworks
Title: Bloom Side Table
Details: 28″L x 16″W x 19″H - cedar, resin
Why It’s Notable:
The organic shape and natural colours of the natural base sharply contrast the stark-white, rectangular tabletop. The stump, in penetrating the pristine top, is saying that it will not go unnoticed. Also, they’re a Vancouver company!
