As always things have been flat tack around here. Throughout my life, winter has always been “the hard time” so I’m pleased to keep myself busy while I pine away for the warmer months. My skinny frame is definitely better suited to the heat.
Furniture Waste Becomes Garden Beds
Up here in Northland, everything that is green grows with ferocity. By mid-summer, our yard feels less like a garden and more like a jungle uprising. And every weekend, the weedeater and I face off in our ongoing battle for territory.
Vanessa (our garden strategist and grand motivator) had the idea to edge our garden beds, creating a designated zone and saving me a few moments of sweaty combat. We got the boys on board and dug a trench around the vege beds. Luckily I have a mountain of untreated sawdust on hand so we wheel barrowed in load after load. And nothing beats the smell of locally grown sawdust. Once the sawdust was in place we covered the area with post peelings. This made a for a quick and very sustainable garden solution. Another good example of how home workshops and locally made goods, transpire in suprising and useful ways.
Steam Bent Hutch Video
When my client told me she needed a space to work her homeopathy magic, we were staring at just a sliver of space. No room for bulky desks or clutter, but no compromise on purpose or beauty either.
So we got creative.
We designed a custom curved desk echoing the soft, organic lines of her office doors and mounted it directly to the wall. Now she has a purposeful nook to set up her laptop and dive into her craft with focus and flow.
For those interested in the process, my friend Tim and I made a video showing me at work on the piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30kmCLhbOwk
Visiting Brett and Getting Back Into Carving
In the last post, I mentioned the Dusty Wizards get together and meeting the carver, Brett Sutherland. The boys had a golf competition down in Mangawhai so I took the opportunity to meet up with Brett again. Brett warmly welcomed me to his beautiful plot of land and told his inspirational carving stories. He carves while looking out to the hills of Mangawhai and works with an amazing collection of materials. Here is a picture of me with a piece of woolly mammoth tusk from one of his trips to Alaska!
Brett has been on some amazing adventures. The carving bug is beginning to creep into my sleeves and here are a few starts I’ve made. I’m hoping to start incorporating some element of carved expression on my future pieces.
Amplifier Design with Dale
Being a musician, I have a passion for audio and tone. The problem with “audio and tone” is that, all too often it comes trapped inside ugly boxes (read audiophile amplifiers).
One of my dreams is to build a tube amplifier that sounds incredible and looks like fine furniture.
A couple of weekends ago I travelled to Auckland to visit my good friend Dale. We’ve been mates since we were 12 and he was celebrating his 40th birthday with some old mates.
Dale is a master tube amp designer and so it seems logical for us to join forces in sound and aesthetic.
We converted his bedroom into a makeshift studio and tested various transformers and capacitors until we achieved something that, to our ears, was quite remarkable.
This has been a secret squirrel project we have been working on for about a year. I’ll keep you all posted on the progress. We’ve just about finished the circuitry, from there it will be my job to make it a beautiful, art object.
What I’m Listening To:
GoGo Penguin – Necessary Fictions
My music streaming app suggested this one to me last month. I love the drum and upright bass work on this album. It’s driving without being tedious and sets me in a really great work flow. I checked out a video of theirs and they can really pull it off live.
What I’m Reading:
East of Eden will continue for a while but I’ve dipped back into my Emmanuel Swedenborg (The Complete Works) reading. He writes about angels and that brings me peace.