New Craft

In order to get ready for the Baltimore American Craft Council show next week I've developed a new series of geometric tea candle holders and flower vases. For quite a while I've been thinking about how to make a series of inexpensive items I could sell along side my shellac work so that I can have a wider range of price points. Though I have no idea how popular they will be, the price point is certainly within reach of anyone who walks in the building.

Still, the most important thing is that I find the work sculpturally interesting enough to make because if I get bored making something, it just isn't going to get done. Thankfully, I feel that I have covered that issue as well. If I were an art critic, looking "objectively" at them, I think I'd say that the random angles add a level of surprise to the pieces and the minimalistic flat surfaces play well with the contrasting complexity of the natural wood grain.

Most interesting for me, however, is how I find them to be an inspiration for non-functional sculpture. I think it would be fun to make something that is conceptually similar without having to worry about functionality. I can see making a much bigger piece that would have real presence without being overbearing. Maybe I'll play around with some ideas when I get back from Baltimore.

The piece below was the first of the series. I was thrilled to find a use for a small chuck of scrap lumber that was very close to becoming someone else's fire wood.

curly birch tea candle holder
5" x 12" x 6"

This one was made with a scrap I had been carrying around since somewhere around 1999. I remember I used the lumber for a couple of nightstands that I'm still real proud of.

curly maple tea candle holder

5" x 22" x 6"

curly birch tea candle holder

5.5" x 17" x 6"

This one (below) is currently available at Artisans Hand Craft Gallery in Montpelier.

curly maple flower vase

5" x 24" x 3"

cherry flower vase

4.5" x 19.5" x 1.5"

These last too were going to be made with just two sections but they weren't stable enough so I added the third. Sculpturally, I think the third piece works well.

curly birch flower vase

5.5" x 24" x 2.5"

curly maple flower vase

6.5" x 27" x 3"

Brattleboro Show and New Ribbons

I am the featured artist at A Candle in the Night, a home furnishing store, in Brattleboro, VT for the month of August and will be at the opening during the Brattleboro Gallery Walk from 5:30 to 8:30 this Friday, August 5. Although a small town, as all Vermont towns are, Brattleboro has a very lively gallery walk with 36 venues in close proximity. The Burlington Art Walk is technically bigger but because its venues are so far apart, it doesn't have nearly the same impact. Brattleboro is also a very cool town so even if you can't make it for this show or a gallery walk, I recommend checking it out if you're in the vicinity.

I haven't had a lot of time recently to make art but in the last month I got in the studio to play around with my ribbon series on a couple of nice thick boards of curly birch that I picked up on my latest trip to the lumber yard. I'll take a few of them down with me to the Brattleboro show but will be looking for other venues to sell them in as well.

I'm excited about using this design to make candle holders and think they should sell well. My personal opinion is that they look great but I have yet to hear what the general public thinks.



I had roughed out eight different ribbon pieces before I realized I needed a mental break so I took this very nice board of curly birch (it has a lot of white spots all around it which I think is an indication of early spalting) and made something linear. One of the nice things about it is it can be viewed from both sides so it can be placed in the middle of a dining room table or other such location (where as the ribbon pieces are really designed for a mantle, shelf, or table/desk along a wall).
I made a number of new ribbon vases at the same time. Although they sell well enough, I know I could sell ten times as many if I figured out a way to make them hold live flowers. Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to figure out a way to do what I want sculpturally and also be able to put water in them, so, for now, to appreciate them, you have to appreciate dry flowers. They all can hang on a wall and some of them can also rest on a shelf/table/etc.





These last two vases are for sale at Artisans Hand Craft Gallery here in Montpelier, VT.

I also made a few purely sculptural pieces that I think of as therapeutic in that they are designed to be touched and, by touching them, the view will feel better regardless of ones previous mental state.


Making them got me thinking that it would be nice to do a "Please Touch" show where the public would be invited to touch all the art. I believe people have a strong, innate desire to touch art but that gallery, museum, and artist restrictions (and I'm certainly one to have raised levels of anxiety when I see people touching my shellac work) of not being able to touch it causes feelings of alienation at times. I just think it would be real interesting to do something that played into that natural tendency, maybe even creating pieces that would intentionally change (and improve) the more they were touched. It would be fun.