Field notes
Every piece starts on a trail somewhere
I travel, and wherever I go I hike. That's where the ideas come from — not a catalog, not a mood board. These are from today, in Wyoming.
I don't sit down and design something out of nothing. I walk, I look, and I take photos of whatever stops me — a burned spire still standing, a root system bent into an arch, a stump that reads like a map. Months later a shape I saw on a trail shows up in a piece on my bench, and I know exactly where it came from.
The beetle trails are the ones I can't get over. Bark beetles tunnel just under the bark, and when the bark falls away you're left with this fine, looping script across the whole trunk. No two are alike. Nobody made it. It's the clearest argument I know for why I don't try to reproduce a piece exactly — nature already refuses to repeat itself.
So this page is part of the work, not decoration around it. It's where my intentions come from, and it's why what you receive is one of a kind.
Beetle trails, written into the wood
Nobody drew this. Bark beetles tunneled it, line by line, under the bark — and the tree kept the record. I could look at this for an hour. It's the kind of pattern I'd never be able to invent, and it's the reason I keep coming back with a full pack.
The same handwriting, weathered silver
Years of sun and snow turned this one gray, and the beetle trails only got clearer. Wood that's been left alone this long has more character than anything I could buy.
Rings, from the top down
A cut end reads like a map — every ring a year, every crack a winter. When I'm planning a piece, this is the geometry I keep in my head.
Burned, and still standing
Charcoal-black spires with pale everlasting blooming at the base. Fire took the forest and the forest answered. That contrast — black, bone-gray, soft white — ends up in my color choices whether I plan it or not.
A stump with a whole shape to it
The grain twists and folds like fabric. Pieces like this are why I never carve a form first — the wood already has one.
The arch
A fallen root system bent into an arch over the grass. Sculpture, already finished, with nobody's signature on it.
Driftwood at the lake
Wind-scoured wood against deep blue water. Days like this are where a piece starts — long before there's a vessel, a plan, or an order.
Want a piece that carries a place you love?
Tell me about the trail, the trip or the room. I'll build toward that feeling with materials I've gathered myself.