art

The Champion Table

After about five months the Champion Table is finished and in its new home outside of Chicago. The woods in this table are Kansas Black Walnut and White Oak (the base uses oak from Kansas, the top uses oak of lesser known origin, beyond my friend, the lumber man), the top features also a small amount of Ebony and sulfur. The design is original, and evolved throughout the building process. Central, is a crucifixion theme and the arc. There are other symbolic elements as well, throughout. I am deeply grateful to the Champion family for the opportunity to build a significant piece of furniture for their home and living. I am also humbled and thankful for all the encouragement I have received throughout the building process. Ultimately I am glad in my heart, laboring to make something that celebrates the goodness of God.

Champion Table Build, Part 4: Base & Arc

preparing to fit the base to the leg assembly

defining a semicircle with 3 saw cuts

3 saw cuts get refined into facets with a paring chisel

and again

then shaped with a rasp

the base of one of the leg assemblies after the 1/2 lap-tapered dado has been cut

here, mated with the white oak leg

a different piece of white oak being shaped with a rasp, one of three slats joining the top of the leg assemblies together and to the table top

the slats also receive a long bevel

the slats will rest in the notches being cut into the top of this leg section

clearing out material from the notch with a 1″ chisel

establishing the final depth with a router plane

here the slats are temporarily in place

an arsenal of shaping tools to begin sculpting the legs

shaping inside-curves of the leg assembly with an aggressive rasp

forming a radius where the legs meet the base

the preliminary drawings had a horizontal stretcher connecting the two leg assemblies at floor level. Having rough-shaped the components and taking a look, I started visualizing an arc instead. PVC pipe (already bent from a previous life in some low garden tunnels) offered a quick prototype to help see how it would look.

the arc made sense, so now setting about squaring up a white oak timber for re-sawing

re-sawn white oak and a glue-lamination form ready to make an arc

the glue lamination in the form- my 8 year old son was indispensable in this process, helping to roll glue, assemble, and clamp

rhythm is in unity to woodwork

the white oak timber, reconfigured as a messy arc

work for the jack plane

now the smoothing plane

cutting the tapers along the length of the arc at the band saw

marking the taper at the width

cutting the taper at the width

more elbow grease with the smoothing plane

shaping the many curves and facets along the arc, first with a drawknife

then with spokeshave

establishing details with knife

facets ease into curves

test fitting- some refining-shaping to go yet

setting the location of the chamfers on the leg-base

shaving away rasp markings

carving corner transitions

so many details to bring together- here the leg base is about done.

That’s it for this round- next week there will be lots of sanding, also carving and inlay work as the table finally starts to become unified. Thank you to everyone for following along, and for your encouraging comments.

Holy, the Lesser Saints

the lesser saints

weave their quiet

agile stories

amongst the lives

of greater lights

holy, the lesser saints

the color

upon their brows

they do not cry out

they do not turn

hearts raised like rafters

heavenward

forever orbiting

tireless in quest

the sphere of your glory

to enter and remain

bring newer life

from ancient tribes

all in anticipation

groaning in the yearning

their own eternal ribbon voice

those who have ears…

let them hear

holy, the lesser saints

bring your longing

bring your capacity

for fullness

in the life of the soil

countless prophets

behold and know

see and have understanding

awaken, members of wholeness

you are provision

you are appointed

little lights, you are His

lesser saints

holding up mountains

echoes of distant voice

priests of the eternal present

fierce and strange

are the quiet ones

in silent witness

givers of the heart of God

receiving and giving from the heart of God

celebrating mystery in plain-ness

in infinite variety and order

teach the spiritual truths of rest and labor

sweat and awe

all from silent knees and horns

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!

Bodark Obed Edom

Print of Obed Edom framed in a re-purposed osage-orange (hedge, bodark, or bois d’arc) fence post

Walking Man nimmt ein Sabbat

Johnny

“Johnny” is a spoon carved in figured hard maple.

Weitergehen “Go On”

winter’s lathe work

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

fumed and textured red oak bowl

fumed red oak

black walnut

black walnut vessel

red oak

red oak detail

red oak

red oak detail

black walnut

box wood

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

Go On, Bezalel

“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.

Bezalel 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.

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. 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.