Here is a draft design for a piece of riverside art, to be placed on public land near the Napa River in the City of Napa. The project is financially supported by a grant from Arts Council Napa Valley, with additional labor donated by the artist and by Friends of the...
A while back I mentioned a letter of inquiry to an arts funding organization, which I submitted in partnership with the Friends of the Napa River organization. We want to create riverside art out of woody debris that originated in the river system. We were invited...
I am working on a letter of inquiry to a San Francisco Bay Area organization that funds collaborative projects between artists and nonprofit organizations. I found out about them a couple of years ago, and an idea for a public art project has crystallized just in time...
The activity of making furniture or other useful objects of wood on a small scale, like other activities usually thought of as craft, has a strong feeling of tradition associated with it. Ever since John Ruskin, such activities have basked in an aura of pre-capitalist...
At the request of a reader, here is the Artist's Statement referred to in the last post. I always start with the material. My wood comes from a variety of sources, including commercially milled hardwoods available from a regional dealer, preferably from certified...
On vacation in New York recently, I visited a gallery show entitled “George Nakashima: In Conversation,” described by its organizers as a collaborative exploration of the interaction of furniture by George Nakashima with the work of several contemporary artists. The...
We have not had broadcast TV in our house for about 15 years. We live under a hill and don’t get a TV signal, but up until 15 years ago we had cable. Then, for some reason having to do with raising a teenager, we got rid of the cable. We would watch movies...
I was working on a design for a trestle table last month, trying to improve the base structurally, when before my eyes a perfectly utilitarian base changed into a pair of clown feet. I stopped working on the design, assuming that I had gone off the deep end in some...