Woodworking
Solace Outdoors is a business name that I intended to use for my woodworking, with the original intention of focusing on building solar cookers and food dehydrators, along with outdoor living products — outdoor tables and chairs, benches, gates, etc. My goal has been to help people connect with the non-human world by getting them invested in spending time outdoors. The outdoor living products that I see widely available are mostly crudely-made, screwed together (and consequently inexpensive) items from home improvement or big box stores, or from the local “Amish-made” people. These products will probably meet basic needs, if that’s what you’re after, but they certainly lack the originality and “soul” of my hand-made, traditionally-joined woodwork.
In the process of creating a solar cooker that worked great, and that I felt good about from a design standpoint, I found that
I started in woodworking at a custom cabinetry shop in Wilmington, NC, working my way through my B.S. in Marine Biology. Later, I partnered with a brother in Colorado in a business that specialized in building beds and other bedroom furnishings. Eventually I finished my M.S. in Marine Biology and worked for several years as a marine biologist and an educator, before going back to woodworking, again partnering with a brother (this time in Durham, NC) in a business in which I designed and built custom furniture, especially tables, using reclaimed materials. My time spent there, at Dancing Eagle Studios, allowed me to really hone my design and joinery skills, and to develop a love for the process of creating fine woodwork.
My main design interests are simplicity, functionality, and elegance, focusing on joinery and clean lines. I am well aware (sometimes painfully aware) that I cannot compete for the business of people who are looking for low-cost furniture or decorative items. There are plenty of retail stores selling functional items at a cost lower than I would pay for just the materials that go into them. But I am also a passionate believer in the value of having furniture that transcends utility. When a person sits down to a custom-made table for dinner, there is additional weight to the process of eating. There are introduced aspects of backstory and of ceremony: This is a table that was made for me by a custom woodworker in Cripple Creek, VA. This table was not cut out by a machine in China or Mexico, but by a craftsman. It is not held together by screws, but by the marriage of the separate pieces of wood, using hand-cut joinery that will last as long as the wood lasts. Real hands worked it from rough wood, real sweat soaked into it, the man who made it cared about it personally and his passion lives inside it. This table is not disposable, and will never end up in a landfill. It will end up in my daughter’s house.
That is the value of custom woodworking. It is personal, and contains part of the passion and soul of the craftsman who made it. If you’re interested in commissioning a piece of furniture — outdoor or indoor, please e-mail by clicking “contact us” at the bottom of this page.
Following is a gallery of pictures of some of my work as a furniture-maker. Most of it was done with reclaimed or local wood, and most of it is finished with natural finishes — shellac, oils, wax.
