One-of-a-Kind Finds

Reverting back to form, I'm going to talk about wood this month. I work with wood on a daily basis. I understand wood far better than pottery or sewing or stained glass. I'm most comfortable discussing this wonderful natural material, so that's what you're getting from me this time.

I decided to pick out a few items that are true one-of-a-kind finds. No matter how many of these a particular artist might make, no two could ever be alike due to the unique nature of the woods used in these marvelous works of art.

Ash Bowl by MaxWood Creations

I don't turn wood. I want to turn wood, but a lathe is a big investment and there are several other items ahead of it on my list. In the meantime I'll just have to drool over the beautiful turn objects at DSG, not the least of which is this bowl by MaxWood Creations. As a useful kitchen utensil it is an abject failure because it has a hole in it. As a piece of art, however, it is pure greatness of the highest order!

From MaxWood Creations: "This Ash bowl is so cool! As it was being turned, a knot was worked out creating a void in the side of the bowl. And because it was turned when the wood was still green, the wood dried after it was completed, and as a result, the bowl changed shape a little bit. So the bowl is not perfectly round. But it is striking and very unique! It would be a great focal point on a side table, on a mantle, or in a curio."

This bowl deserves to occupy a place of honor in someone's home.

Spalted Maple Jewelry Box by Welcome Woods Workshop

Jewelry boxes. I plan to build some jewelry boxes in the next year, and I'll be referring to this one for inspiration. This wonderful box features contrasting wood, visible joinery (the splines on the corners), and sturdy, simple lines that let the beauty of the wood shine.

From Welcome Woods Workshop: "A simple yet elegant hand crafted, solid maple jewelry box. It is made from Spalted maple which I hand milled myself with a small chainsaw mill and came from a large maple tree in an old churchyard here on the Sunshine Coast. The top is made from black cherry as are the splines. It is finished with a durable varnish clear coat."

This box will stand out in just about any décor, yet the design won't get in the way of your jewelry.

Elemental Slide by Holzfurhaus

Yeah... One more piece that makes me regret not owning a lathe. I love working with walnut because of the feel of the wood under my tools and the wonderful smell. I can just imagine how nice it would be to turn a bowl out of walnut.

From Holzfurhaus: "This is another bowl in the Elemental series. It is made from walnut, with a sanded natural edge to make it a lilttle more intersesting. It has deep dark shades of walnut color. This is an ornamental piece not intended for food or liquid."

This bowl should be in my library right now. I know just the place for it...

Mantle Clock by Marko Wood Designs

Tim Marko is a friend of mine. He live a few miles away from me, and I plan to spend some time in his shop stealing every secret the man has about finishing wood. The clock you see above has some wonderful design elements -- visible joinery, through tenons, the spalted cottonwood face -- but the true beauty of a Tim Marko piece is how well he finishes the wood. He has a very specific go-to formula he uses, but I think the real trademark is in the loving care he pours into every square inch.

Tim Marko says: "This clock is made from ash and spalted cottonwood. It uses a quartz chime movement that plays on the quarter hour and counts the hour. It has a natural finish."

Jagged Maple Burl Vessel by Natural Selection Studio

This bowl/vase/upside-down cone is turned from a piece of maple burl, a misshapen, malformed bit of a maple tree that woodworkers prize for it's beauty. And that beauty has been enhanced here by the gouge and the lathe, imposing a mostly symmetrical form upon a natural mistake. The results speak for themselves. And the real genius of this design is leaving the natural "wild" edge at the rim.

Natural Selection Studio says: "This wonderful vessel is overflowing with interesting color and figure. It measures 5-3/4" tall by 4-1/2" wide at the rim. Need a focal point in your decor? This is it! Finished with walnut oil."

And it would make a fine focal point indeed!

I trust this little tour through the wooded regions of Design Style Guide has given you some design ideas of your own. Check out the other offerings from all our woodworkers. You won't be disappointed.

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If you make Handmade Home Decor Items, come and join our team by clicking on the image below. Not only will you be able to network with us, but also you will have the ability to post your listing on our team website.

If you like this blog entry you'll love my blog, jn3 Hand Crafted Woodworks. Check it out. I'll be glad you did.

Tracy Selmer Gordon, Etsy Artist from Virginia

Before she answered these questions for me, here's what I knew about Tracy Selmer Grodon: She made cool stuff out of stone; She was a member of Design Style Guide; She had a cool name for her business. Now I know a lot more, and so will you, after reading this...

1. What is your shop name and what do you sell?

My shop is called New Dominion Blues. I sell nature-inspired home décor with a pinch of vintage home décor items as well. I currently have a large selection of stone coasters and trivets, some with designs painted on the surface. I am working on some larger scale stone pieces that can be installed as kitchen backsplashes, focal mosaics, or countertops. I also have a variety of beaded garlands and curtain tie-backs, and other small accent pieces. I started taking pottery classes in August of 2008, and I am thrilled to report that my skills have started to catch up to my aspirations, and I am able to offer some wheel-thrown pottery. I just recently added a vintage element to my shop, giving Etsy shoppers a more complete opportunity to browse through my interior décor aesthetic.

The origin of my shop name: My husband and I love blues music. We try to visit Chicago as often as possible, especially for the annual blues festival. We even got engaged there. While our hearts may often be in the Windy City, we live in the Old Dominion. Over the years, we have accumulated a large volume of blues music and memorabilia in our Virginia home; enough that we have created our own personal blues bar that merges the blues in our souls with our geographic location - New Dominion Blues.

2. What long series of events led to you doing this?

I grew up running through the woods, building forts, and collecting anything and everything that I might possibly be able to use for a future “project.” That meant rocks, wood, bits of trash abandoned in the woods, you name it. Once a utility worker made the mistake of leaving a specific tool under a bush next to the large green box it was created to open. My friends and I gathered all the loose wire out of the box, and kept the tool so we could go back when more would be left behind. The wires we took weren’t connected to anything – they must have been left as extra for future work. My neighbor and I made a lot of jewelry from these colorful plastic coated wires, and set up shop on her porch. I’m not sure we ever sold anything, but we certainly were ready.

I have always had an interest in art, and a certain level of natural skill that I haven’t spent much time nourishing until recently. I have always been very driven to succeed – in academia and my career. That left little room for “fun,” and I haven’t really had the necessary space to spread out and create, either. I am fortunate to now have plenty of space – having recently finished building an in-home studio – and the experience of a number of home improvement projects that have honed my practical skills and inspired new ideas.

Another insight into my creative process: I have one pretty bad dog and one pretty good dog. I believe in decorating for real life, meaning that you work with and around your circumstances. Having dogs means worrying about dog hair, mud and drool. And that’s just for starters. It also means accidents, unexpected regurgitation, and, in the case of my bad dog, mischievous stealing. A table is right at eye (and mouth) level for my mastiff. His favorite game is stealing objects and hoping I will chase him. I have lost many, many items over the years, and coasters were out of the question due to their typically light construction. One day it occurred to me that he would be less likely to steal a stone coaster. I now use slate coasters identical to those I sell in my shop, and he has not once stolen one. Good design, practical use, problem solved.

3. Who taught you the particular skills you use in your work?

I have to say that my mom is the biggest influence I have in terms of creating. She and I work in different media, and her abilities range from quilting and sewing to basket-weaving and mosaic work. But I have certainly inherited my can-do attitude from her, and nothing is more fun than when we find opportunities to combine our crafts. She also has an Etsy shop at loneweever.etsy.com.

My second biggest influence is probably trial and error. I will dream up some crazy idea, and give it a whirl on a prototype or two.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Fran at Manassas Clay. Everything I know about pottery I have learned from her in her classes there, and I cannot even begin to thank her enough for opening up the world of clay to me.

4. How long have you been selling online?

I joined Etsy on March 13 of 2008, and began listing items within a week or so of that date.

5. What is your favorite thing about Etsy?

I love the atmosphere, the palpable creativity, and the opportunity to find that perfect one-of-a-kind item.

6. What is your favorite thing about what you sell?

What I love about my shop is that I only sell things that I would use to decorate my own home. It is very much a reflection of my own style and aesthetic. More often than not, I made an original to solve a design problem in my own home, and decided to create more to sell in the shop.

7. What is your favorite item in your own shop and why?

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I am really excited about the new vintage items in my shop, and I will have a hard time parting with several of them. One of them is the vintage House & Garden magazine cover from June of 1937. It depicts a tree stump covered in blooming blue morning glories, and beautiful in its natural simplicity.

8. How does your work differ from the work of other artists in your field?

There are several shops on Etsy that offer stone coasters, but I have yet to see another shop that takes as much care to photograph the stones with as much detail as I show. Most of my competitors will list a set of coasters and indicate that the coasters they send to you will be similar to the ones shown. I find that choosing stones is a very personal thing, and I want my customers to be able to select the stones that speak to them. I try to select stones that go well together, but I want to leave it to the customer to choose the exact pieces that they want. I haven’t seen other stone coasters that have metallic leaf designs painted on them, nor stained images. I have also noticed that many shops cover the entire bottom of their coasters – which seems unnecessary to me, and unfortunate, since the beauty of the stone is a 360 degree experience.

9. What teams do you belong to and what do you like most about them?

I only belong to the Design Style Guide, and I love that it is such a broad base of creativity and artisanship. I also love that the team is focused on interior design, a subject I find interesting and dovetails well with my shop.

10. What is the most fun thing you do to promote your shop?

The most fun, and most labor-intensive, thing I do to promote my shop is my blog, New Dominion Blues. I try to give insight into my shop, my studio, and my creative process, but I also spend a lot of time featuring other artists, things that inspire me, and related subjects.

11. What are some of your favorite finds by other sellers on Etsy?

I have many, many favorites, but I will share a few that I have bought, and a few that I will someday buy…

I swoon for alinahayes’ robins egg pieces.

I bought one of these salt shakers from StudioElan, and I still keep coming back to gaze at it online.

everyeskimo is one of my newest favorite shops.

I have several of these vintage skeleton keys with borosilicate glass beads, made by Venbead.

12. What do you do in your spare time?

I’m not sure I have much in the way of what I would call “spare time,” but I do tend to fill my time working on my Etsy shop, my blog, working in my studio, throwing pottery, home improvement projects, training and wrangling my dogs, and preparing to write a number of books that have been rolling around in my brain.

See also: Our Exclusive Interviews

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If you make Handmade Home Decor Items, come and join our team by clicking on the image below. Not only will you be able to network with us, but also you will have the ability to post your listing on our team website.

If you like this blog entry you'll love my blog, jn3 Hand Crafted Woodworks. Check it out. I'll be glad you did.

Let's Talk About Wood

I'm a woodworker. I love the feel, smell, and look of wood in my shop, and I love seeing beautiful pieces of furniture, made from beautiful pieces of wood, sitting in someone's home.

Today I'm going to show you some wonderful examples of the woodworker's art. Keep these in mind the next time you decide to purchase furniture for your home or someone else's.

First on the list is a piece by an old favorite of mine, Black Mountain Furniture. This is a Farm Table and Bench Set, which includes a Tapered Leg Farm Table with 2 matching Benches. It would look beautiful in so many homes here in Texas, and in millions of homes across the U.S., Mexico or Canada. It's not a formal dining room set, but I'm not really interested in formal dining, and neither are lots of other people these days. For me, this table with two benches is the perfect solution, the perfect centerpiece for the perfect dining room.

This is a mood light, a "Naturalight" from Tuavus Design. This is a piece of functional art for your living room, den, study, library, whatever. It is made of Bocote, an exotic hardwood harvested somewhere in the tropical regions of the Americas. It features brass inlays and blue LED illumination. The lights are turned off by laying the piece over on one side, turned back on by standing it up on end as you see it here.

The Naturalight is stunning from any angle, daytime or nighttime, and will serve as the perfect starting point around which your room's deçor is designed.

Next I'd like to show you this wonderful mirror, suitable for your bedroom, livingroom, or over the mantel of your fireplace. It was designed and built by Ed Arts and Crafts Mission Style Handcrafted Furniture, and is made of Quartersawn White Oak with Walnut dowels. Not only does this piece shine on its own, but it will show off your beauty as well, as you gaze into the 30" x 24" mirror mounted in this gorgeous wooden frame.

I can't help but put one of my own creations into this group. I built this small Candle Holder out of Spalted Pecan I picked up from my local sawyer. I built two of these and my wife immediately claimed one of them as her own. The other one is presented here.

This candle holder will provide intimate, flickering light at your table as you enjoy a bottle of your favorite vintage, or illuminate your master bath whilst you indulge yourself with a tub full of bubbles.

The possible uses for beautiful pieces of wood are nearly endless. The love and care our woodworkers here at Design Style Guide pour into their products is palpable. And the woodworking choices you, as a homeowner or interior designer, have available to you here are numerous and exciting. It inspires me to see these items. Take a look through all our woodworking offerings, all our furniture, and see what inspires you.

My Grandmother's Eyes, part two

One of the first things I ever wrote for DSG was a blog post called "My Grandmother's Eyes." I included art from DSG members, art that my grandmother would have loved. She loved bright colors. She couldn't see very well, and colors she saw were muted, so she tended to pick bright reds and greens and blues, oranges and pinks. She had a collection of ceramic cardinals that was legendary, and was even featured on a regional television show out of Houston, "The Eyes of Texas," some 30 years ago.

Two months ago my grandmother was ill, and we took her to the emergency room. She was in and out of the ICU at Huguley Hospital north of Burleson, Texas, for 12 days, and during some of that time she couldn't remember much, even from one minute to the next. When she came home we hoped she might pull out of it. She was feeling better, smiling, joking with everyone even though she couldn't speak above a whisper. We had arranged to have a hospital bed set up for her in her home, and my mother (who lived there already) was going to take care of her.

Over the next week my grandmother felt better, felt worse, was energetic and then tired, but on the eighth evening she went to sleep early and we could never wake her again. Two days later I quit my summer job with the Alvarado school district and moved in with my mother to help care for "Ma Ma." We barely slept, didn't eat enough, but we got into a sort of rhythm after a couple of days, trading the watch during the night so we both could sleep a little. And on the morning of my eighth day there, with my mother, my wife and myself holding her, my beautiful grandmother, Rupie Lee Johnson, passed away at age 98.

Ma Ma taught me many things in the 48 years I knew her. She taught me to cook, to garden, to take care of my family. But she mostly taught me to love unconditionally. She and my grandfather, Lenard Johnson, were the sweetest people I have ever met, period. I honor them by doing the things they would have done. I take care of my family, my mother included. I cook for them, often using Ma Ma's recipes. And I love them.

I needed to let you know why I have been absent from this blog for two months. I wish none of this had happened and that my grandmother was still living with my mother in Burleson, Texas, but that's not the way things worked out. I wouldn't trade a moment of the time I spent with Ma Ma over the last two months or the last 48 years.

I have selected a few new items for Ma Ma from a few DSG artists. These things jump out at me because they are things I would have bought for her as Christmas or birthday gifts. The reasons vary, and I'll not go into detail about any of them. I just know she would have loved them and she's probably smiling about my choices right now.

I love you, Ma Ma.

Beet Design Switchplate 602a-tl

From: KEEPSAKES

There, Right THERE

From: WindDancer Photos

Petals

From: Karen Faulkner Original Art

Japanese Maple Leaves No. 1 From: Terry Aske Art Quilts

Cardinals

From: Trillium Studios

Why Things Are the Way Things Are

Have you ever wondered why a thing looks the way it does? Operates the way it does? Maybe not. Maybe I'm the only one who ever thought about this stuff, but I doubt it.

Anyway, I'm going to explain why one of my designs was, well... designed the way it was, and then I'm going to attempt to explain someone else's designs without asking them about it. I may be crawling out on an exceptionally fragile limb, here, but I figure I can control the danger somewhat by sticking to my own field of expertise: woodworking.

So, here's my own design. It's a candle holder made out of bird's eye maple. It holds seven candles and sells for $110.00. It's a one-of-a-kind piece.

This project is an outgrowth of my original candle holder design, made of bird’s eye maple instead of pine. It's rectangular instead of square, and it holds seven candles instead of four, but it is otherwise identical in construction. The idea was to make a little fire-pit to be used indoors. The idea was to show off the wood, not my joinery skills.

Like the original the table top is made by laminating two pieces. The bottom piece lacked much of that feature most prized in bird’s eye maple, so I didn’t mind hiding it.

When I made this piece my old drill press had just died on me. These holes were actually drilled out by hand with a drill-driver and a 1 7/8” Forstner bit. That took two days. They really aren’t kidding when they say bird’s eye maple is a hardwood.

The point is that it was worth the effort. I love this piece. The wood just sings, begs to be touched. I've had several people ask about it, three or four get excited about buying it, but no one has pulled the trigger on the deal yet. And I'm not concerned. There is a home for this little indoor fire-pit. After it sells I will probably build something similar because I think it's a pretty cool idea.

And now let's look at "Black Limba" by Henderson Wood Craft. This is a wall hanging, and Henderson Wood Craft has this to say about it:

"This set of wall panels are made from a combination of African Black Limba, Yellow Heart, Ebony Alowood and Bloodwood. Each panel measures 17 x 17 in. They are finished in a polyurethane semi-gloss. The set is designed to hang vertical or horizontal with a 3/4 in. standoff."

On Saturday, May 9, 2009, my wife and I visited the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. This museum is known for it's wonderful collection of Remington and Russell paintings and sculptures, but one piece that jumped out at me was by... well, someone who's name isn't jumping out at me right now. It was a collage, made entirely of reclaimed wood. I'm certain I've never seen another one like it. If you're ever in the area, this piece is hanging in the lobby near the gift shop.

The point of that piece, I'm sure, is to show off the beauty of the weather-beaten wood. In that respect the piece is a enormous success. The point of this piece by Henderson Wood Craft, I'm certain, is to do the same thing, and it is just as successful as the piece I saw in the museum.

I try to show off the wood I use -- even when it's a lowly slab of pine -- in every candle holder or wine rest or whatever that I build. Henderson Wood Craft does the same thing with their tables, wall hangings and everything else I've seen from this designer. They let the beauty of the wood shine. Good design is sometimes the design you don't notice right away. Good design in woodworking is the design that puts the wonderful figure of maple, red heart, black walnut, bubinga, cherry, bloodwood and African Black Limba in the best light, showing off what Mother Nature has already done for us. These designs deserve to be seen and purchased and displayed prominently across the globe.

Here are some other pieces from Henderson Wood Craft. The beauty of the best natural material on Earth shines in these two furniture selections and one more wall hanging.

 

I sincerely hope I have done justice to Henderson Wood Craft in this article. I would love to hear from someone there, either father or son (both?). And I'd love to hear from everyone who reads this. What do you think about the pieces on display here? And what do you think of my evaluation of them?

•••••

If you make Handmade Home Decor Items, come and join our team by clicking on the image below. Not only will you be able to network with us, but also you will have the ability to post your listing on our team website.

If you like this blog entry you'll love my blog, jn3 Hand Crafted Woodworks. Check it out. I'll be glad you did.