I started woodworking in my basement on my dad’s old shopsmith. In a furniture making class in college, I fell in love with the feel of a sharp plane on wood and decided I needed to see where this led. So, I enrolled in Mass College of Art and Design as a sculpture major and began apprenticing with Dale Broholm to learn the fundamentals of furniture making. After earning my BFA, I started a custom furniture making business while apprenticing with Jere Osgood. I am most inspired by forms in nature and try to capture the essence of a shape or structure that inspires me.
Trapezius Chair
Bent, tapered twisted laminations
Cherry
I fell in love with the way the muscles of the neck dip and weave past each other. I tried to capture that undulation in the back of this chair.
Bent, tapered twisted laminations
Cherry
I fell in love with the way the muscles of the neck dip and weave past each other. I tried to capture that undulation in the back of this chair.
While new scientific devices can move our understanding of the world further, art too regularly advances with the development of a new technique to overcome limitations.
I love making wood curve and learned to make tapered laminations from the one of the masters of the technique, Jere Osgood. Tapered laminations taper along their length, allowing the final piece to narrow without cutting through the grain. This enables the design of more dramatic curves without compromising strength.
I love making wood curve and learned to make tapered laminations from the one of the masters of the technique, Jere Osgood. Tapered laminations taper along their length, allowing the final piece to narrow without cutting through the grain. This enables the design of more dramatic curves without compromising strength.
But with this technique it is difficult to make small radius curves in thick wood. So, I invented a Filled Tapered Lamination to overcome this. In this technique, the distinct inner and outer edge of the curves are laminated curves individually and solid wood is tapered and kerfed to fill in the center. This technique can be seen in the pieces below.
See-Through Side Table
Filled laminations
Cherry and glass
2023
Plants are both strong enough to stand tall yet flexible and adaptable enough to follow the sun. Despite being built of delicate materials, plants hold a stalk vertically by balancing tension in an outer member and compression of an inner structure. It is in the push and pull of the tension and compression that the plant gets its strength. And it is in the synchrony of variation within the inner structure that it controls its movement. Swell cells on one side and the stem bends away.
Here I mirror both the structure of the plant and its development of form. The inner and outer membranes of the legs were formed from thin shells of veneer which in and of themselves are not strong. The strength comes in the pairing of the laminated shells with the compression of the stoccatoed inner segments. It is in the accumulation of slight variation in the space between the segments that a sinuous rhythm emerges, like the swelling of select cells to arch the flower towards the sun.
Filled laminations
Cherry and glass
2023
Plants are both strong enough to stand tall yet flexible and adaptable enough to follow the sun. Despite being built of delicate materials, plants hold a stalk vertically by balancing tension in an outer member and compression of an inner structure. It is in the push and pull of the tension and compression that the plant gets its strength. And it is in the synchrony of variation within the inner structure that it controls its movement. Swell cells on one side and the stem bends away.
Here I mirror both the structure of the plant and its development of form. The inner and outer membranes of the legs were formed from thin shells of veneer which in and of themselves are not strong. The strength comes in the pairing of the laminated shells with the compression of the stoccatoed inner segments. It is in the accumulation of slight variation in the space between the segments that a sinuous rhythm emerges, like the swelling of select cells to arch the flower towards the sun.
Pelvis Stool
Filled tapered laminations
Bubinga, Ash and leather
I love the curves of bones. Yet, bones, unlike most furniture are often thickest in regions with the greatest curvature. This piece best utilizes the filled tapered lamination approach to capture that element of the structure of the pelvis.
Filled tapered laminations
Bubinga, Ash and leather
I love the curves of bones. Yet, bones, unlike most furniture are often thickest in regions with the greatest curvature. This piece best utilizes the filled tapered lamination approach to capture that element of the structure of the pelvis.