Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts and Wood

Lately I have really been immersing myself in the flowing beauty and simplicity of Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement that flourished in the early years of the 20th Century. The Art Nouveau style is exemplified by artistic geniuses such as Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. During the same time period, other artisans such as Gustav Stickley, Elbert Hubbard, and Charles Rohlfs, and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Greene & Greene contributed to what came to be known as the Arts and Crafts Movement. Both movements became interwoven and formed a new design style which was a deliberate departure from the overly ornate Victorian style that preceded it. Each artist, artisan and architect had his or her own style, yet each expressed a common belief in simplicity of form and a communion with nature. The art of this period took a critical look at the new age of machinery and mass production. As an alternative, it emphasized hand craftsmanship and locally skilled creative workers.

Personally, there is no other period of time which has produced so many pieces of art that can take my breath away. Walking through a Greene and Greene home gives me more pleasure than eating an ice cream sundae…and at zero calories. My wife and I had the opportunity to tour the Gamble House in Pasadena, CA, a beautiful city which is the “Mecca” of Arts and Crafts on the West Coast. The house was built in 1908 as the winter retreat for the son of the founder of Proctor & Gamble. It was designed by the upstart young architect brothers, Charles and Henry Greene, who had just been to the World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, where they became influenced by Japanese architecture. The whole place is a symphony in wood. Mahogany, teak, maple, oak and cedar. Each room is a new treat. The joinery, the carving, the details! It’s an overdose of some of the best wood craftsmanship I have ever seen. If you are ever near Pasadena, a tour of this National Historic Landmark should be on you itinerary.

The above photo shows a detail of the carved cedar frieze in the living room of the Gamble House. The artist used the deep natural grain of the weathered cedar plank as part of the carving. This freize circles the entire living room. It was subtle yet overwhelming at the same time...if that's possible. I found myself staring at it with an open mouth.

If you’re stuck on the East Coast but still want some indulging Arts and Crafts desserts, I recommend the Gustav Stickley exhibit at the Newark Museum going on until Jan 2, 2011. I was especially impressed by the inlay work in some of the pieces. See Stickley chair on the left.







If that isn’t enough dessert for you, I suggest the special exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City called “The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs”. It ends Jan 23, 2011. See Rohlfs chair on the right.








Immerse yourself in the pleasures of Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau as I am doing, and let me know what you think.

Ah, the burn of a good cigar... box, that is.

I picture one of my early ancestors, thousands of years ago, forging a metal spear point out of bronze and laying the hot metal object down on a piece of wood. “Hey, would ya look at that!” he would say, as the hot metal spear point burned a design into the wood. Thus, the art of wood burning or pyrography was born.

As crude as that early experience might have been, my recent experiences have not been much better. I have taken up the art of pyrography, which means I have invested in a decent burner transformer unit, a few tips of assorted shapes and a tip holder pen. I’m just a beginner, and still in the experimentation stage, but I’m starting to really enjoy this new hobby.

I am very fortunate to have a cigar superstore about 5 miles from my house. They sell empty wooden cigar boxes for one dollar each, ten for $6.00. There are sitting in a huge crate right near the entrance to the store, which doesn’t seem to stay full very long. I’ve been stocking up on boxes for several months now. Some of these boxes are very well made out of solid exotic woods with beautifully crafted box joint corners. Why do I feel like I’ve just given away my secret? Oh well, there are lots of boxes to go around.


This new interest of mine combines art with recycling, which makes me feel good about the enterprise in general. I’m still not sure what I will be doing with the finished boxes, but Christmas is coming up and they might make good gifts.

Have you ever tried pyrography? Have you ever tried to turn old cigar boxes into new works of art?

The Shape of Spoons to Come

My family has a lot of left-handed people. I am not one of them, but my wife is and so are two of my four children. We once had a family celebration at a restaurant and out of 12 people, 8 were left-handed! This brings me to the subject of left-handed and right-handed spoons. I like carving wooden spoons. They are so utilitarian. You can be very creative and they make good gifts. Recently I have made several non-symmetric, ergonomic shaped spoons. I used cherry and maple “firewood” branches from my backyard. I have designed one shape for a right-handed person; and the other for a left-handed person. In the photo above, the top spoon is the righty; and the bottom spoon is the lefty. “Not so”, says my wife. She would prefer to use the one I designed for a righty, and she is left-handed. I showed her photos of similarly shaped spoons on the Internet. They are all labeled “left-handed” and they are shaped sort of like my design. To make matters worse, all the other lefties in my family agree with her. I guess it’s not right to label things…or people, for that matter.




What do you think? Which spoon shape would you prefer using? Perhaps you would rather use a straight, symmetrical, old-fashioned wooden spoon instead of one with a curvy shape.

One Awesome Walk in the Woods

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic."

Evangeline A Tale of Arcadie
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My wife and I took a weekend trip to northwestern Pennsylvania, to attend a regional woodcarving show at the Sawmill Arts Center in Cook Forest State Park. The show was enjoyable, but the highlight of the trip was a hike through an amazing old growth forest of ancient white pine and hemlock trees aptly named: “the Forest Cathedral”. The big ones were over 36 inches wide and over 150 feet tall. Most of these giants were over 300 years old. The forest floor was covered with fallen tree trunks and, as Longfellow said, blanketed with moss and ferns. I took photos, but they just don’t do justice to the grandeur of the place.

The history of this forest is interesting. It seems a lumber baron by the name of Anthony Cook became very rich in the late 1800’s, by stripping most of the area of trees and floating the logs down to Pittsburgh. However, he never touched the old growth in the center of the property. In 1928, he became somewhat of a conservationist and deeded 7200 acres to PA which became the State Park. Fact: By 1920, two-thirds of the trees in Pennsylvania’s forests were gone as a result of the lumber industry.

I would recommend a trip to Cook Forest State Park to anyone. It might not be Muir Woods, but it’s one of the best old growth forests in the East and very accessible, by a short two mile hike. Looking straight up the trunk and seeing a 150 foot tall, 36 inch diameter pine tree swaying in the breeze, is a sight I won’t soon forget.

The Joy of Regional Woodcarving Shows

I recently attended the 37th Annual Woodcarving & Wildlife Art Festival sponsored by the Lancaster County (PA) Woodcarvers. It was an enjoyable and inspiring experience full of beautiful carvings and friendly people. The exhibitors were willing to share their knowledge with anyone who would stop by to chat. They were competing for ribbons. For some, this is a serious hobby. For others, it is their primary source of income. There were carved waterfowl, song birds, funny characters and Santa Clauses. If you were looking to buy beautiful hand-crafted works of art, this was the place to be.

I was totally in awe of some of the wildlife carvings on display. I have never tried to carve a detailed, life-like waterfowl, and I don’t think I ever will. I just don’t have the skills or the patience. No doubt, many of these carvings took several weeks or even months for the artist to complete. The prices on the tags would never compensate the artist for the amount of time spent.

Whether you live in Pennsylvania, or Kansas, or Oregon, these regional woodcarving shows are precious gems. They demonstrate that we are still a nation of talented artisans with wood craft skills passed down from generation to generation. The craftsmanship is honest, down-to-earth and surprisingly good. Many of the exhibitors I spoke with had never taken an art class in their life, yet their work is museum quality.

What has been your experience with regional wood carving shows?

These are for the birds

Spring is here so I built a few birdhouses. Actually I built one new one and refurbished two others, all with scrap wood. Admittedly, they are not much to look at, but they meet all the latest recommended birdhouse dimensions and include all the latest recommended features. I’m not sure the birds care how the outside of their houses look.

There are some interesting things to consider when building a birdhouse. For instance, the size of the entrance hole and height above the floor of the birdhouse is very important to appeal to the right species of bird. Also, the popular perch stick is just below the entrance hole is not needed, nor recommended. It provides a place for predators to sit and wait. Another feature to prevent hungry squirrels from chewing through the hole area is to reinforce the hole with a ¾” thick block of wood, making the entrance passage longer. All the specifications and suggestions you will need are on the internet. If you are interested, go to the following websites: http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/Building_Bird_Houses.html. or http://baltimorebirdclub.org/by/house.html

After I finished hanging the birdhouses on nearby trees, I got to thinking maybe birdhouses are an opportunity to get creative. As long as all the proper dimensions and features are included, and the birds don’t really care what the house looks like, why not carve something on the front. Perhaps a wood spirit or something humorous. Here’s a challenge: Design a clever birdhouse and send me a photo of it. I’ll publish the best ones on the blog.

"A Reverence for Wood" by Eric Sloane

What books do you keep on the nightstand near your bed or on the shelf next to your favorite chair? Those books (and magazines) probably say a lot about who you are and what is important to you. The subtitle of this blog, “a reverence for wood”, was not chosen casually. One of the five or six favorite books on my nightstand is “A Reverence for Wood” by Eric Sloane, originally published in 1965. Actually, the book I have is called “Sketches of America Past” and combines two other Sloane books, “Diary of an Early American Boy” and “A Museum of Early American Tools” along with “A Reverence for Wood”, in a single bound edition.

I first read “A Reverence for Wood” back in the early 1970’s and remember being totally captivated by it. I have re-read it many times since then. It’s my kind of book, lots of interesting illustrations, all by Eric Sloane himself. It is also a historical book about “the old ways” of making practical things out of wood. It shows that our ancestors had close relationship and intimate understanding of wood that, for the most part, has been lost by our present generation. It is a book about history and the ingenuity of the early American pioneers. It has definitely been an influence on my life and my pursuit of woodcraft.

I was not going to post this entry on my blog since I couldn’t imagine my blog visitors, most of who are interested in woodworking, as not having already read “A Reverence for Wood”. It is practically required reading for anyone interested in wood. But then I thought perhaps there are people out there, especially visitors from other parts of the world, who may never have heard of the book. But even if you have read the book before, it is worth getting a copy and going through it again. Every time I open it, it gives me a new incentive to go make something out of wood.

Have you read “A Reverence for Wood”? What are your thoughts about the book, or other books by Eric Sloane?