About the Artist and His Works
I have a hard time being called an artist. Craftsman? Sure. I’ve done entertainment centers, staircases, fireplace mantels, and lots of other custom work over the years. Woodworker? Well, yes, I work with wood so I guess I qualify. Builder? Yes, I’ve been a licensed builder for almost 34 years, I’ve built houses, including my own. But ARTIST? That’s different. Still, I’ve been accused by so many people of being one, so I guess I ought to just plead guilty to the charge and get on with things.
This is what I look like. I’m past 60.
I like working with wood. I live, along with my wife and mother-in-law, on 55 acres in northern Osceola County, here in Michigan. We’ve got many varieties of hard and soft woods, and I’ve worked with all of them at one time or another. Most of my work, as you can see, has hard (sugar) maple, beech, or cherry as a main ingredient. But I also use basswood, ash, apple, lilac, poplar, red (soft) maple, birch, ironwood, tamarack, red, white and scotch pine, and a few others. They all come from the acreage here. Occasionally I’ll use something I didn’t harvest, like black walnut, red oak, recycled red cedar, but those are very infrequent exceptions. I don’t often harvest a healthy tree. I have a sufficiency of trees dead from age, disease, or wind, sometimes down, sometimes still on the stump.
I don’t work from plans, generally not even from preconceived ideas. I start playing with the wood and see what happens. Sometimes nothing worth noting happens. Sometimes I amaze myself. I don’t do anything with the dominant thought of “what do people want to buy?” and I guess that makes me an artist, too. I do what I like to do, make what I want to make, and, if others like it, too, that’s great. But, with my artist’s temperament, I do it for myself first. If I don’t like it, you’ll never see it.
Here’s a link to my appearance on TV 7/4’s feature, “Made with Michigan Hands” in May of 2013.
On our acreage are the remnants of an old homestead, abandoned sometime in the 1930’s. Many of my pieces include things I’ve dug up back there; a doll’s head, plow parts, cookstove pieces, horseshoes; they all just seem to belong, so I use them. I also use other found things. Look for them. And, sometimes, when there’s a hole to fill, I’ll inlay them with interesting stones or other stuff.
My inspiration comes mostly from the two most important living women in my life, my wife and my daughter. Here they are, with my reflection in the middle, at the World Trade Center in New York City, in May of 2012.
I guess that’s more than you might want, or need to know. I could say more, and maybe someday I will. For now, I’d just as soon let my work speak for me. I hope you hear it.