I’ve worked in wood for many years, making picture frames, furniture, cabinetry, etc. In 2006, my family and I bought a house in the middle of 50 heavily wooded acres. While living there, I had this idea that I wanted to take a cherry log, stand it on end and carve it into a twisting ribbon, then gild one of the edges.
Being a father of three young children, there was never time to do something so ambitious. Then we moved away, and there were no big cherry logs at hand. Still, the idea continued to nag at me.
Over the years I discovered an interest in “green” woodworking, which is working freshly cut wood. This technique lends it self well to simple crafts such as spoon and bowl carving.
Fast forward to 2018. I had a few pieces of white oak from a downed tree on CMU campus. Even green it was unpleasantly hard to carve into spoons. There was a small log around 30″ long. It occurred to me to try my old idea of the wood ribbon. That idea became “Cobra”, the first of the pieces here.
