Tell us about your practice and how you came to making?

I took my first woodworking class while pursuing my BFA, and I immediately knew I had found my place and creative path. The sensory experience of the wood shop reminded me of home: my dad was an arborist and there was always an abundance of strange shaped logs and sections of tree trunks scattered across our yard. There were regularly sounds of chainsaws in the backyard; a log splitter and wood chipper had permanent residence in the driveway. Working with wood is challenging and constantly humbling, and though I now work across a variety of materials, woodworking was my entry point into my career as a maker and designer and continues to be my primary material. 

My current practice is multifaceted and I constantly oscillate between woodworking, fabrication, design, teaching, and writing. The constant circulation through all of these distinct manners of thinking and making results in a variety of outputs — small objects, prints, short pieces of writing, and larger furniture objects like you see in this exhibition. 

Do you have a ritual when it comes to making/designing work?

I generally find that I have my best ideas for new work and can ideate most clearly when I am out of the studio: usually while biking, walking, hiking, swimming, or sitting at the park. I try to document the ideas quickly and roughly outside of the studio, and then spend my time in the shop refining and executing. Designing and making objects is one of the few things that actually gets me to slow down, both mentally and physically. On a good day in the studio I will feel like I am in a flow state of sorts: steadily and smoothly working within the process, making steady and precise marks with my pencil and chisel.

You told us you are inspired by the landscape. Can you elaborate on that here?

The inspiration from landscape is two-part. First, in a very literal sense I am inspired by rolling hills, by winding rivers, by sweet and small curious birds. There are straight-forward and representational references to these aspects of nature and landscape in a lot of my work from the past few years. Second, the inspiration from landscape expands in a broader sense to include small moments and details of place that I observe and absorb wherever I am. I maintain a regular journal and visual diary where I document architectural details, stained glass window patterns, lines of text from a poem I read on the train, a spiral shaped shadow cast on the sidewalk from the swirls of a wrought iron fence. Through an intentional practice of presence and observation, I isolate small moments that delight or intrigue me. The objects serve as a way to hold these fleeting observations and moments to give them a permanent place to live.

There’s a lot of carving in your work. What led you to this practice? Have you always used carving/mark making as an exploration of theme?

I have done some letterpress and relief printmaking in the past and have always been drawn to those processes and methods of image making. I have also always been drawn to school desks, benches, tables, and trees that people have marked and personalized over many years — evidence of the uncontrollable desire to make one's mark on a surface. So much of woodworking and furniture making requires precision and careful consideration, so I wanted to integrate something more freeform and loose into the work. Pulling directly from my sketchbook felt like the most seamless way to blend both my drawing and design practices.

Carving or hand making has a lot of meditative practices embedded within it. Does your practice of carving feel meditative? If so, what themes are you exploring during this process?

The practice of carving is absolutely meditative. I start by intuitively drawing on the surface of whatever I’m making — it is free and loose. I’m able to create the composition in real time and the feedback is immediate, compared to the slow process of building the piece itself. It feels important to have a portion of my practice be completely intuitive, like I can fully trust my hand and my eye. When I have all of the drawings laid out, I make sure to keep my gouges sharp and focus only on making clean, crisp lines. It feels very grounding and I finish every object knowing that my eyes have landed on and approved of every inch of the work.

Teaching is a part of your practice. How does that influence your work and pieces you’re thinking about?

I teach a lot of students who are brand new to power tools and sometimes completely new to working with their hands. It is so empowering to be able to build and customize your world, and watching someone light up and delight in using a table saw or router for the first time reminds me how fortunate I am to be someone who knows how to build things. My students all have their own individualized approaches to design and woodworking, and they all regularly inspire me to push myself out of my comfort zone and explore new ways of seeing and making. 

What’s next for you? 

I am really interested in getting into more soft goods and upholstery. I think the illustrations and patterns I’m making would lend themselves well to embroidery which I have started exploring and plan to experiment with ways to integrate it into the work.

I have also recently started collaborating with my friend Jenna Goodman (whose work is also included in this exhibition) and I’m really excited to see where it leads. It has been so refreshing to work alongside someone and begin melding our ideas and sensibilities.