craft

The Champion Table Build, Part 1: Compose, Scribe and Fit

Champion Table Scribe02

the beauty of God’s edge

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composing pieces

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flattening black walnut with a router and jig

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more looking, more composing

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smoothing and shaping edges

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smoothing and joining white oak

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assembling white oak panels

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white oak and black walnut adjusted and clamped for scribing

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knife scribing every curve

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the white oak panel marked and ready to cut

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rough cutting on the bandsaw, staying about 1/16th to 1/8th away from the scribed line

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cutting the line deeper

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paring away the waste to establish a shoulder along the scribe-line

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making the shoulders broad and deep

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chopping and paring right up to the line

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the shoulder becomes a jig to cut the rest of the piece right to the line using a pattern bit and router

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after cutting a slot for a floating tenon, dry-fitting pieces

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the floating tenons cut and laid out

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tenons glued in

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glued and clamped

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joining and smoothing the new edges

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on to the next step…

Holy, the Lesser Saints

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the lesser saints

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weave their quiet

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agile stories

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amongst the lives

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of greater lights

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holy, the lesser saints

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the color

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upon their brows

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they do not cry out

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they do not turn

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hearts raised like rafters

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heavenward

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forever orbiting

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tireless in quest

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the sphere of your glory

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to enter and remain

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bring newer life

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from ancient tribes

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all in anticipation

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groaning in the yearning

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their own eternal ribbon voice

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those who have ears…

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let them hear

holy, the lesser saints11

holy, the lesser saints

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bring your longing

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bring your capacity

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for fullness

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in the life of the soil

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countless prophets

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behold and know

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see and have understanding

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awaken, members of wholeness

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you are provision

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you are appointed

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little lights, you are His

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lesser saints

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holding up mountains

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echoes of distant voice

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priests of the eternal present

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fierce and strange

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are the quiet ones

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in silent witness

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givers of the heart of God

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receiving and giving from the heart of God

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celebrating mystery in plain-ness

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in infinite variety and order

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teach the spiritual truths of rest and labor

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sweat and awe

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all from silent knees and horns

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in the unending world, glory will be known forever

Commerce

Workshop, Studio & Land

commerce01

A slew of recent additions to our Etsy storefront are pictured below.  There are prints, bowls, handmade goat milk soap with free shipping and a few paintings, even. Please click on the green BaumWerk sign immediately below to visit the store.  Thank you!

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commerce11 commerce09 commerce10 commerce08 commerce12 commerce01 commerce02 commerce03 commerce05 commerce04 commerce06 commerce12

The Eternal Present

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Summer waxing

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into eternal presence

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ancient thunder quivers along the crust

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twinning amongst and toppling titans

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the smallest witnesses quiet as their gaze

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oldest of fault lines wrought with terror for men

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Ragnarok not yet come to cleave a line between

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the fruits of Eden and the curse

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brothers old as Abel and Cain

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approach the day with a steady gate

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mend the tack and the linkage

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the work the day is ready to hand

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unfold unfold great sheets unfold

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the heavens rain diamonds from the mouth of God

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the rye bends, the wheat and barley bend, the corn the teff bend low, below

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rust and blood speak and spin

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the day is new again

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tension speaks in unheard frequencies

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felt, like order drawn from skeins of chaos

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a fragment of destiny

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order from a mystic mind

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elder memories

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ancient fodder, best fodder

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tools for the telling of

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tools for the remembering of

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the days when Noah stored up faith

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quieted his family with peace

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as the rim of the earth spilled over

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rolling stones 

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adjoining man with the presence

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again, Noah enters day

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moored, listening

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breathing presence in

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wrested in grace

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see how the earth remembers differently

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manifest ancient eternal presence

Weitergehen “Go On”

winter’s lathe work

Red oak bowl with salting and beaver teeth-marks.

Red oak bowl with salting and beaver teeth-marks.

red oak
A beaver girded and killed the red oak tree form which this bowl was made. I endeavored to feature his his teeth marks in a few of the bowls.
red oak
communion plates
red bud
kentucky coffee tree
persimmon communion cups
black walnut platter
platter and cups
black walnut
black walnut
fumed and textured red oak bowl
fumed red oak
fumed red oak
fumed red oak
fumed red oak
black walnut
black walnut
black walnut
black walnut vessel
red oak
red oak
red oak detail
red oak
red oak detail
black walnut
black walnut
box wood
box wood
box wood

box wood

Many of these bowls are or will be for sale at our Etsy Store: BaumWerk.

Go On, Bezalel

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“See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills…” Exodus 31: 2 & 3.

Go On, Bezalel3Bezalel is kind of an early renaissance man, thousands of years before Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, or Durer.  More importantly he was faithful to God’s design of him as a craftsman.  He was  found worthy to build the design of God concerning the tabernacle and all of its parts.  As a craftsman and artist, it is hard to comprehend anything so significant to my earthly labors as to manifest on earth something that was authored in the very heart and mind of God.  Go On, Bezalel5

Go On, Bezalel7

Elizabeth Duffy asked me about influences and progenitors in her interview with me last year.  Here is an excerpt of my response pertaining to Bezalel:  I hope, maybe, to be in the line of Bezalel, who fashioned so much for the tabernacle, making the sacred things that were part of the “technology” of worship of His God for his community. Personally, I couldn’t ask for more than that. Bezalel is valuable as a paradigm of an artisan of broad experience and skill. He could work in many trades and arts with skill worthy of God’s Tabernacle. My good friend reminds me of the value of a man of that breadth of experience and skill in contrast to a culture that places a premium on experts of high degree in a single field. When I wonder if I am hurting myself by embracing so many disciplines, I am grateful for Bezalel and his place in God’s story, and a few other men I have encountered who are champions of excellence in this way.Go On, Bezalel1 The drawing, an imagining of a portion of Bezalel’s tent-workshop, started two or three years ago, finally over the past two months I was able to finish it.  It is composed along the lines of another drawing, Go On, Adam, Breathe.  An potential series of drawings?  The drawing to me feels so limited, compared to the vastness of what could be explored and depicted, as a task to learn about Bezalel, his labors, and his relationship to his God.

Go On, Bezalel4

An Interview With Elizabeth Duffy

detail of Go On, John the Baptist, oil on panel, 2008

detail of Go On, John the Baptist, oil on panel, 2008

Elizabeth Duffy has been posting parts of an interview she began with me last spring and summer.  To date, this interview consistutes the clearest and really, only articulation of the beliefs and values behind my work.  I hope that you will take the time to read it.  The interview will ultimately be posted in it entirety on this site, but for now, here is part 1, part ll, part lll, and the final bit part lV.  Please take the time to read some of Elizabeth’s writing as well.  She is authentic, humorous, and insightful.  Her wit and self-effacing style reveal a woman on a significant journey with valuable things to say.