blog posts
Tim's latest "side" project was making two Backyard Backhoes for the grandkids. These are really cool, colorful sturdy wood outdoor toys -- made to last and be handed down for generations. Future Backyard Backhoes will be custom made to order with your choice of colors and logo designs! Check out the article for more details, including price, order fulfillment time, custom color choices, logos and shipping.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Maybe this classic philosophical question has finally been answered, in a magical, musical way. Bartholomäus Traubeck, a composer from Vienna, Austria, has figured out how to translate tree rings into something akin to music. Traubeck uses technology to create "music" from the ring data on slices of seven different tree species. Read more about Tree Songs:
The first part of my daughter’s bedroom set that she ordered.
I was recently interviewed as a part of the Artisan’s Craft show at the Museum of the Rockies.
Lou and Cheryl Quallenberg are right next to us at the Western Design Conference. Lou made stools to sit on — they go with his exquisite mesquite table, but I think the stools are hidden under various bottoms (mine and Tim’s included) more often then they are on his pedestal in plain view. Boy — is it ever hard to stand for 7 hours at a time! I am personally grateful to Lou and to Les & Tauni Powers for sharing their seating.
Lou’s mesquite furniture is absolutely gorgeous. We saw it for the first time at last year’s conference. He supports the twisted, highly figured Texas mesquite table and bench tops, with sinuous trestles and legs. The overall effect is something I would classify as Contemporary Organic, like Tim’s furniture.
Either Tim’s or Lou’s furniture would fit beautifully in a contemporary city loft or a Rocky Mountain lodge-style home. Their pieces easily compliment modern or traditional decor and furniture of steel, chrome, antler or leather.
Check out Lou’s website and gorgeous gallery created by his wife Cheryl. She’s as much behind his creative momentum as Lou is himself.
— more later on the conference as we head home tonight… Maureen
Well, we’re here at the Western Design Conference, hanging out with friends from last year and making new friends.
We are meeting lots of customers and really hoping someone will make a connection with one of Tim’s woodworking pieces and decide to take it home with them. We’d both really like not to have to take his “The Yellowstone” table and “Forest Muse,” the beautiful walnut desk home with us, no matter how much I’d like them in our own living room.
Here are the three pieces Tim entered into the juried part of the Western Design Conference exhibit.
Right next to Tim’s pieces, Les and Tauni Powers, of Nature’s Forms, have an elegant booth with outrageous sculptural pieces by Les. My favorite reminds me of the wind dancing through the sandstone canyons at Zion, where we go with our shamanic study group every spring. Turns out, when I mentioned that connection to Les, he told me it is inspired directly by Red Canyon in Bryce, very close to where we go with our group.
I’ll post about Lou Quallenberg‘s incredible mesquite table tomorrow. For now, here’s a shot of Lou and 3 friends all woodworkers, and links to their websites. Check ’em out:
I am saddened to hear of the passing of one my inspirations, James Krenov. He died yesterday at the age of 89.
Krenov founded the College of the Redwoods Fine Furniture. Here’s a Fine Woodworking Magazine photo slideshow of work by Jim.
We met Lou and Cheryl Quallenberg at the Western Design Conference and immediately hit it off with both of them. Personally I like this photo I shot of Lou better than the pics he has on his website. (heh — tongue planted firmly in cheek — heh.) Lou really does have a fun sense of humor: enough anyway, to match Tim’s.
Lou creates exquisite tables, benches and desks from large slabs of mesquite that might otherwise be doomed to the barbecue pits of Texas.
Cheryl is an artist and graphic designer in her own right, creating colorful impressionist watercolours and promoting Lou’s woodworking with her clean, elegant graphic design.
I only got a hint of the many excellent stories these two have to share … I hope we see them at next year’s WDC — even better, maybe they’ll show up in Helena for a relaxed visit.
(lou-and-cheryl: hint, hint) — Maureen
p.s. check out Lou’s furniture at Lou Quallenberg Studios
