Holter Museum 15th Annual Art Auction

Tim donated one of his one-of-a-kind live edge tables to the Holter Museum 15th Annual Art Auction & Gala.


Prairie Coulee by Tim Carney of Helena Montana


There are many excellent works of art to be auctioned in support of the ongoing programs at the Holter, including works by Rudy Autio, Jennifer Bottomly O'Looney, Dana Boussard, Chip Clawson, Russell Chatham, Sarah Jaeger, Nan Parsons .... too many to mention all of them here. Head over to this link to see all of the works for auction.

The Auction and Gala will be from 5:30-10 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, 2008. Please come and support the arts in Helena, even if you don't plan to purchase anything at the auction. The more folks in the audience, the merrier the auction! If you don't live in Helena, but are going to be in town that evening, please consider attending the auction. It should be a fun evening.

Ticket and Gala information

"Prairie Coulee" part of Holter Museum's Annual Art Auction

I helped Tim deliver his walnut coffee table to the Holter Museum today. He is donating this piece to the Holter's 15th Annual Art Auction fundraiser. The exhibit is still being set up, but it looks fantastic so far! I want that polar bear painting on the wall behind Tim (left.)

All auction pieces will be on exhibit from June 6th through 28th. The Gala and Auction is June 28th at the Great Northern Hotel.

Holter Museum's 15th Annual Art Auction
Bair and Millikan Galleries
June 6 - 28
Opening Reception: Fri, June 6, 6-8pm
Gala and Live Auction: Sat, June 28 at the Great Northern Hotel
The Holter Museum presents an exciting selection from among the finest work of Montana and regional artists: ceramic vessels and sculpture, painting both figurative and abstract, works on paper, fine wood objects and furniture, hand-crafted jewelry, and mixed media. The annual benefit gala and live auction support the museum's exhibition and education programs.

"Prairie Coulee" live-edge curly maple, live-edge curly walnut and bloodwood, by Tim Carney of Helena, Montana

all photos copyright ©2008 by Maureen Shaughnessy

Timothy's Furniture represented by Legends, of Whitefish Montana

Tim and I recently spent a pleasant two days in Whitefish, Montana delivering 6 studio furniture pieces to Legends Fine Wood Furnishings at Stampede Square.

River's Rift, ©2008 by Tim J Carney.

We unloaded the furniture in the late afternoon, then headed over to the Duck Inn where we stayed the night. I had made the reservation through Duck Inn's website, so I wasn't sure how the real thing would measure up to the photos. We were both extremely happy with the room: we had a view of Whitefish River, elegant bed linens and good inn-keeper company.

We shared a fabulous dinner at Tupelo Grille which specializes in Creole and Cajun dishes. As of that night, Tupelo's Grill replaced Chico Hot Springs Restaurant in my mind, as the best restaurant food to be had in Montana. An excellent red cuvee: Marquis-Philips "Sarah's Blend" wine and delicious appetizers filled us with just enough room to have their reknowned bread pudding with rum sauce. OMG! I now have a new favorite dessert. Yumm!

Enough about the food (though I could go on about the yummy breakfast at the Buffalo Cafe next morning ...)

Cindy's Dad relaxing in "River's Bend"

After spending the next morning at Legends gallery with owner Cindy Goodwin, and taking lots of photos of Tim's furniture in place (most of which did not turn out -- I'm really not a decent interior photog) we headed over to the woodshop of another woodworker represented by Legends, Phillip Pontillo. He was building this cabinet when we visited.

We spent a pleasant hour visiting with Phillip in his small (750 square foot) Whitefish shop. Phillip builds beautifully crafted studio furniture which can be seen at Legends. We were amazed at how much Phillip packs into his small space, and thought his shop deserves some press.

Speaking of shops and efficient use of shop-space, you might want to check out this woodworking shop, 700 square feet of efficient space for one woodworker, Matthew Teague. The link (above) is the "Final Walk-Through" post on Teague's blog, Smart Shop which is one of the Fine Woodworking sponsored blogs.

Art of Wood

We would like to invite you to join us for an opening reception of the Helena Woodworkers' Guild 3rd Annual Exhibit, "Art of Wood." The reception is from 6 pm to 10 pm Friday, November 9th during the Downtown Helena ArtWalk. The exhibit will also be open from November 2 through 30th during box office hours at the Myrna Loy Center for the Arts at 15 East Ewing Street in Helena, Montana.

Helena is home to more fine wood artisans than most people realize. Please come see the talent and craftsmanship of our members during the month of November. Even better - join us for great food, drinks, live music and the attention of our craftsman members during the reception Friday evening.

We have 21 members of our Guild, ranging from hobbyists to experienced furniture makers. Anyone with an interest in woodworking and in learning and sharing is welcome to join our Guild.

If you live too far to visit in person, please enjoy our short slideshow below, and check back for updates on the exhibit during the month of November. (clicking on the individual photos will take you to an enlarged version)

Fantasy Tree: the Baobab

Thank you to Daniel Montesinos, for allowing me to post his photo of Baobab (Alley) Avenue in Madagascar. Coincidentally I was just reading about baobab trees, Andasonia digitata, in "The Soul of a Tree" by George Nakashima, a Seattle woodworker who was honored in 1989 at an exhibit of "America's Living National Treasures." That same day I stumbled upon Daniel's photos of these weird, fascinating trees -- and I wasn't searching for baobab photos either!

Anyway, Nakashima writes that, "although baobabs are huge, sometimes reaching almost a hundred feet in girth, their ages are obscure, for they do not have annual rings like most trees." Hmmm .... wonder how scientists do calculate the age of these trees? Nakashima mentions a baobab said to be over four thousand (!) years old.

Here is another of Daniel's photos of these trees -- they look like something out of Dr. Seuss's imagination:


The wood of the baobab tree can be 60 to 70 percent moisture and the tree trunks actually shrink in diameter during drought. The wood is pulpy, so I'm curious why Nakashima included the baobab in his chapter on trees used by woodworkers.

Links:

Baobab photos by Daniel Montesinos



The Soul of a Tree, by George Nakashima



Nature, Form, and Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima
By Mira Nakashima


More about Baobab Trees

Handcrafted Furniture

Ad for Timothy's Fine Woodworking August/September 07

A Meditation on Trees: Hermann Hesse

A skilled woodworker, I believe, is one who has learned to listen to trees, who has learned a few life-lessons by working with the beautiful, strong bodies of trees and who has learned to see the soul of a tree in the roughcut slabs of wood.

The German writer, Hermann Hesse published a thoughtful collection of poems and travel prose in 1917, titled, Wandering. The book was translated in 1974 by James Wright. One does not have to be religious to appreciate Hesse's love of the natural world and his urge to find oneness Below are short excerpts about learning wisdom from the trees around us:

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

... For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.

... Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured.

Every young farmboy (and I would say, woodworker) knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries: whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning ... It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own thoughts. Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives that ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them ...

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

-- excerpts from Hermann Hesse: Wandering, translated by James Wright, © 1974 Farra, Straus & Giroux

-- Maureen
The (almost) complete excerpt is posted at my blog, Raven's Nest. Click here to read that article.

You know how one thing leads to another.....?

Well, Tim and Tracy cleaned the shop! And it was a rather large new "baby" that motivated the cleanup. Check it out:



Tim is the proud new parent of an AEM wide-belt sander ... he and Doug Kralicek, of Kralicek Millworks, drove over to Pinesdale, Montana to pick it up a week ago. Huge thing!



I (Maureen) had no idea how big it was until the day I dropped by to shoot some photos of the beast -- it was still in Doug's trailer and Tim, his electrician, Jim White and one of Doug's employees were scratching their heads over how to get the danged thing out of the trailer and into the shop.

In the process of making room for the new overhead sander (and moving the older, smaller one out) Tim got all jazzed up about cleaning and organizing the shop. It was dusty. Yep. His shop was also pretty crammed with lumber, sheet goods, cabinet boxes in the midst of assembly, stuff stuff and more stuff -- and oh, did I mention the sawdust? So, Tracy and Tim spent the entire last week (Tim did the weekend too) cleaning, organizing, tossing, taking stuff to our local salvaged-building-materials store -- ReStore -- as well as to the dump.

All these years, Tim's had to store all of this supplies and materials for woodworking right in the shop. Some of that stuff he brought with him from Pocatello and hasn't looked at since the day he moved into the shop. Would ya say he might not need it anymore? The folks down at ReStore were happy to have all of his give-aways and I bet now a few days later, that stuff has found new homes all over Helena.

Well, one thing led to another. Or I should say, one good idea led to an even better idea. The brainstorm was to get a container to store most of the shop's wood. That cleared a huge space. And the huge space turned into even more working room in the shop.

A few days later, I was truly amazed. Tim took me over to the shop last night to show me the changes. Whoah! I hardly recognized the place! He had re-opened a double-wide doorway between the two sides of the shop, making the work flow much more efficient and comfortable.

Now an entire wall is available for hanging the large collection of jigs, templates and patterns within easy reach. They divided the shop more clearly into two rooms, and both rooms are much better connected with two large doors and a large window to allow light to penetrate from the assembly room, below, into the machine room.



The assembly room (in both photos above) holds their workbenches, chop saw, spray booth, assembly benches, hardware storage and a cabinet for finishes.

The machine room now has more room to manuever large pieces of lumber around all of the machines.


On Sunday, Tim assembled all of his chair prototypes (which had until then been mostly piles of parts.) He hung the prototypes from the ceiling. What a good idea -- plus they look cool hanging up there like wallflowers at a highschool prom.

It's going to be a much more enjoyable place to work for both guys.

Until next time,
Maureen

Rockin' it in Big Sky Country

Found on the Web: What does Green Really Mean?

Photo from Fine HomeBuilding pdf article. Click photo to read the article

Okay, it's really happening -- green is the latest building and design industry buzzword. Heck, even the Wall Street Journal writes that the sustainable design/green-building movement has become mainstream. You know builders have jumped on the bandwagon when the National Association of Home Builders announces that it is standardizing it's voluntary green building guidelines.

Pick up any remodeling, home decorating, interior or architectural design magazine and you'll find at least one feature article on going "green." Yet how do you know, with all the green stuff coming at you from every direction, if what you are getting is really, truly green -- in the sense of environmentally friendly?

Fine Home Building (Taunton Press) has long published news about the green building movement, even before it was trendy. Tim has subscribed to Fine Home Building for many years - the publication is an excellent source of inspiration, ideas and reference articles. The latest issue of FHB includs an excellent article by editor, Scott Gibson titled, What Does Green Really Mean?

Check out Scott's article. And if you're back this way, please leave us a comment --- let us know what you think about the green building movement! Thanks for reading.

8 Ways to Make Your Home Greener

Sustainability is a word that is often misunderstood. For many people, sustainability or "green" means "environmentally friendly" But it is more than reducing waste, protecting the environment and recycling. Sustainability is a process that enables all people to realize their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways that (also) protect and enhance the Earth's life support systemsOfrom the Forum for the Future) To understand sustainability we must become aware of how everything we do, everything we take, everything we make and everything we waste affects nature's balance and how our actions will ultimately affect our children and all of Earth's children.

Each choice we make has a cost that is a combination of the economic, social and environmental costs set against each choice's benefits.

In a recent study six out of ten homeowners said they would like to use sustainable, environmentally responsible design and materials in their home projects whether that means for new home construction or home remodeling. Whether they would actually use green materials depends largely on cost and looks. Here we will take a look at both of these issues and give you some ways you can -- gradually -- add the color green to your new or remodeled home.

Cost has been a deterrent to many people when they are deciding whether to spring for green building materials or stick with the old tried-and-true. Because energy costs are rising sharply with no relief in sight, at least some green building materials' costs are now closer to the non-green materials. Plus, homeowner interest in sustainable design and materials is growing rapidly -- and as interest rises, so does the demand for these products, which eventually will bring costs down further. It would take a whole other article to discuss the ROI (return on investment) concept, something we'll take up another time.

In Montana, our challenge is finding green building materials at a reasonable cost. There are added transportation costs and fewer distributors of these products in Montana. As more people ask for and demand environmentally responsible products, I hope their availability and affordability improves.

There are other ways to address the higher cost of earth-friendly materials. If you are building a new home and want to use "green" flooring such as cork, carpet made with no formaldehydes and with 100% recycled fibers, for example, it will cost lots more if you are covering 3000 square feet of floor versus if you build a smaller home in the first place and only have to install floor covering on 2000 square feet. Smaller homes are more efficient to heat as well, and the total cost of all building materials for a smaller home saves you enough that you may be able to afford to make greener choices.

The look of green building materials is another issue. Many people are under the impression that green -- environmentally responsible -- design and materials, are either ugly, clunky or inelegant in appearance. This perception may be leftover from the early days of earth sheltered homes made with black painted oil drums, salvaged lumber, wine bottle walls and cedar hot tubs. On the contrary, most environmentally responsible materials and design methods today are not only beautiful, but they have a simple elegance unmatched in traditional materials. Interior designers and architects are specifying earth-friendly materials that are downright elegant and truly gorgeous. Besides, I personaloly believe salvaged lumber has a warmth and history that fits nicely with traditional or contemporary home styles.

Okay, so how can you green your home incrementally if you don't want to or can't afford to do it all at once? here are 8 suggestions:

1) If you are looking for a new home, find one within walking distance of schools, workplaces, parks and grocery stores. If you can walk to most destinations, you will use less gas. To me, that means your home is greener!

2) Build on an infill lot. Most new housing has greater environmental consequences, with development replacing open space and agricultural land. New housing also requires new infrastructure such as roads and utilities. A new home built on a vacant lot (infill) uses existing roads and utilities.

Solar Panels on Homes photo by crume

3) For any new building, choose technologies such as solar panels, high R-value insulation and low-impact building methods and materials.

4) Design your new home to be more energy efficient and use less resources. You can do this by simply building a smaller, better-designed house. Large homes use more resources and may require more energy to heat and maintain than small to mid-sized homes. A smaller home on a smaller lot can be equally if not more satisfying to the soul, as author and architect, Sarah Susanka writes in her book, The Not So Big House.

4) Even better than building new, remodel an existing home to improve its' energy efficiency. Install double-paned windows, Energy-Star appliances, an efficient furnace and hot water heater and energy efficient lighting can reduce home energy bills by over 30 percent.



5) Remodel to make your home greener -- just a little at a time. Whenever possible, choose environmentally preferable products such as low-gas paints, formaldehyde-free plywood, carpets made of recycled plastics, cork and linoleum flooring (both made of low-impact renewable resources,) countertops and kitchen cabinets made of recycled or earth-friendly materials and sustainably harvested wood.

Classic Kitchen by Tim Carney

6) When purchasing cabinets and furnishings for your home, consider spending a little more for the best quality you can afford. Well made, classically designed cabinetry and furniture will remain stylish and last longer than cheap, lower quality home furnishings. In the end, high quality products cost you less and protect the environment because you don't have to replace them.


7) Landscape your home -- either new, or remodeled -- to conserve heating and cooling energy. Plant shade trees to shield your home from hot summer sun. If you plant deciduous trees on the sunny side of your house, you will have shade in summer and sunlight in winter. Evergreen trees and shrubs can also conserve energy by lifting cold winter winds up and over the house.

8) Design your home's landscape to conserve water and fossil fuels: read up on Xeriscaping methods, choose drought-tolerant plants, and substitute plant beds or hardscaping (deck, patio, pathways) for thirsty, energy-intensive lawns. Remember to use as many locally available materials as possible.

Certified high quality wood products

As artisan woodworkers, Timothy's Fine Woodworking uses only the highest quality materials possible within the budget constraints of our customers. We also want to make sure the materials we use are earth-friendly and environmentally responsible as far as possible.

As much as possible, we build our furniture, cabinets and other home furnishings using FSC-certified wood products. That's how we and our customers can support environmental practices without sacrificing high quality and elegant design.

Until recently it was almost impossible to find FSC-certified hardwood products and no-added-formaldehyde veneers and plywoods for our woodworking shop. Gradually, as the interest and demand for environmentally responsible materials has increased, so has the availability. The cost is also slowly coming into line with traditionally manufactured wood products. I hope that soon you will not be able to find wood products manufactured with formaldehyde glues and other environmentally degrading byproducts.

Columbia Forest Products now offers a line of 100% certified decorative wood panels and veneered particleboard that carries the Forest Stewardshop Council (FSC) ecolabel and qualifies toward the US Green Building System requirements. Visit their website for more information on this line of products.

If you are concerned about the health and environmental affects of formaldehyde-containing wood products used in your home, ask your builder, carpenter, architect or contractors to specify veneers and plywoods with no-added-formaldehydes. If enough people request these more environmentally friendly materials, the availability will increase and the cost will go down.

Inspiration: The Yellowstone

The Helena Woodworker's Guild recently held their annual exhibit at the Myrna Loy Center for the Arts in Helena, Montana. We put the show up on December 3 and held our opening reception on December 10th, the night of the Helena Winter Art Walk. We had pieces by John Hinshaw, Priscilla Bode, Tim Carney, Travis Smith, Chris Yavah. We had great attendance at the opening, a good time and hopefully generated lots of interest in the abilities of Helena's many talented woodworkers. We'll be posting some photos of the exhibit and opening soon.

In the meantime, I would like to introduce Tim's most recent one of a kind piece, The Yellowstone, inspired by one of North America's most awesome rivers and national parks. This hall table's live-edge slab top is made of curly mango accented with carved ripples in one end. The trestle is a sinuous fluid shape carved of lacewood and the legs' tapered laminations are of padauk and mahogany.








Lewis River Canyon, Yellowstone Park Photo by Hayden61

Yellowstone Park is filled with natural wonders that have fascinated people for hundreds - or thousands - of years. Yet there are beautiful forces equally as passionate, hidden under the surface of the land. Firey reds, sulphuric yellows and vibrant turquoises are created by minerals pushed from deep under the earth's crust. In Yellowstone Gorge, you can see colors in the geological layers like paint dripping on a gigantic canvas.

And though we can see evidence of earth's geothermal activity in the paint pots, geysers and bubbling hotsprings of the park, imagine what we can't see ... the power and lifeforce under the surface.



Although the table top itself is fine to look at, if you look beneath the live-edge slab top, even through the knot holes you can see layers of the piece. Tim carved "ripples" in the table top, where the slab's shape seemed to naturally flow like water. He chose lacewood to make a rippling trestle, because lacewood's grain also recalls the turbulence and dancing movement of rough river whitewater. Or when a trout rises to mouth the reflecting river's surface.

The legs are shaped with the thought of the volcanic activity and subsurface underneath Yellowstone Park.

Exhibit

Rocking Chair for Maureen

Hi Ken and Mary. I'm just gonna leave this blog post up for awhile to make it easy for you to get to Tim's flickr albums. Just click on the photo of the rocking chair (which, by the way, is the one Tim made for me - isn't he a sweetie?) Anyway, just click on the photo and it will take you to Tim's flickr page. In order to comment under any of his flickr photos, you have to sign up for a free flickr account (which is a very cool online photo storage service) ... but I think you can make comments on any of Tim's blog posts here at Shop Talk, without doing anything like registering. and don't worry - we won't spam you. [grinning]

Mango & Mahogany Bed

This custom designed master bedroom set includes the mahogany and mango bed (left) with curving headboard, a curved footboard that also functions as a seat, two bedside tables and a mahogany mirror above the owner's black dresser.


There is a bookshelf neatly tucked in the most convenient place -- right up near the top of the bed. Isn't this where books and papers tend to collect anyway? Why not make an intentional place to keep your bedtime reading?

The mahogany mirror matches the bed, reflected here.
A curved footboard also functions as a seat.

Want more storage without adding a new room to your home?

Whether you are building a new home or remodeling, you can never have too much storage. You could buy furniture specifically designed for storage (china cabinets, dressers) but then you would have that much more to dust and vacuum around ... and besides, you may not have room for more furniture.

Or, you could install “built-ins” which stay with the house and increase its resale value. Design as much storage as possible into your remodeling project or new home. Custom built-ins can be economical, attractive, functional and best of all, make your life easier.

Well designed built-ins can provide convenient storage in every room and contain clutter. Built-ins make small rooms seem larger and more open because they are attached to the walls and take up less floor space.

Instead of a wall between rooms, consider a partition with built-in storage and display shelves as in the photo, left. Tim and Tracy built the glass-door cases to separate the entry foyer from the living room while preserving the openness of the large room.

Custom built-ins can fit an oddly shaped corner or a closet you want to open up. Your furniture may be arranged around the focal point of a fireplace (above and left) yet you want to be able to watch movies without rearranging. Solve this dilemma with a built in media center flanking the fireplace. Combine the media cabinets with display shelves for a beautiful and functional living room focal point. The media center cabinets hide the television and any other clutter when not in use.

You’ll need plenty of built-in storage in a craft room, often located near the kitchen or in the laundry room or garage. No matter what your craft or hobby (sewing, woodworking, scrapbooking, etc) you can get customized drawer and cabinet inserts to fit your supplies and tools perfectly. Consider the benefits of being that organized!

Other possible built-ins to consider for your home are a bedroom storage wall or built-in dressers, window seat benches that double as storage with recessed bookcases on the sides, a bookcase wall with media center, mud room storage benches and wall-hung cubbies, wardrobes to organize your closets, a snack bar, wet bar or coffee bar in the family room, a dining booth and a built-in desk near the kitchen (left,) a craft room storage wall with workbench, drawers and display cases, bookshelves under the stairway, dining room wall hutch or display niches for art, recessed between wall studs.

This custom built dining room hutch (left) by Timothy's Fine Woodworking, leaves plenty of room to expand the table for large dinner parties. The hutch has in-cabinet lights to highlight the china collection as well as lots of practical storage.

There are almost endless possibilities for making more effective use of the space in your home by adding built-ins. Take advantage of the numerous cabinetmakers and woodworkers in your city or town, who can customize your home with built-in furniture, storage cabinets and display shelves. To find a woodworker who can work with you on custom built-ins, start with your local phone directory listings under “Cabinets” or “Furniture Designers & Custom Builders.”

Tim J Carney

Why build a prototype?

(by the way, if you want to see any of the photos on this site enlarged, just click on them)

When I design and create a custom piece of furniture such as this dining chair, I have several steps. After initial concept sketches, I draw the piece to scale. My second step is to use the scaled drawing to make a prototype -- or full-scale model -- of the chair. With the prototype I can test-drive the piece to make sure it is comfortable, sized correctly and most importantly, to refine the lines and forms of the design. The third step is building the actual chair. I guess there is a fourth step: making sure my customers are satisfied!

The photo above is the first version of the prototype for an armless dining chair. After contemplating the model for a day, taking it home and letting Maureen sit in it and give me her opinion, I decided to make a few changes to the chair. I change the prototype to make sure I am 100% satisfied before gluing up and cutting the walnut and curly maple I will use for the final piece.

As you can see, the prototype is very rough -- for instance, the joints are not faired the way they will be in the final chair. I don't use glue for the prototype - the joints are mechanical or fitted with screws. This makes it easy for me to take the model apart to make adjustments.

Dining Chair Sketch
Originally uploaded by timcarney.

Although I was planning to fair out the chair legs anyway, I noticed from the prototype that I wanted to make the legs and seat of the chair more graceful, slightly more curved and rounded out than I had originally drawn in my sketch. I also immediately knew that I wanted the crest rail to have a more pronounced curve and that the balance between the hard lines and soft lines of the chair needed some tweaking. The joints of a prototype are extremely rough -- I leave extra wood at the joints on the model. But having this new design sitting in front of me -- in three dimensions made it a lot easier for me to see where I needed to make the transition points between hard and soft, and around the joints, have a more graceful flow.

All of the changes I thought of making after seeing and trying out the prototype are subtle changes, but it's those subtle, almost invisible qualities of a piece of custom furniture that make the difference between a hohum or unattractive piece and a piece that really has soul, a beautiful well-crafted piece of furniture.

I make prototypes whenever I am working on a piece of furniture that's totally new to me. The extra time it takes me to build a full size model is well worth it in the end results.

This (photo above) is the first go-round of refinements to the chair model. I'll post more pictures of our refinements, and the finished chair as the work progresses. Thanks for stopping by my website and we'd sure appreciate it if you want to leave a comment, feedback, or ask any questions.

-- Tim J. Carney


(my editor insisted on putting this pile in, just for fun.)
More views of the refined prototype:

Transforming Flaws to a Thing of Beauty

Memorial Table2
Originally uploaded by timcarney.

Saint Paul's Church in Helena has recently dedicated their new church home after many years of work and fundraising for this ambitious building project. Years ago I served on the building planning committee, when we had to make the difficult decision to cut down the old birch tree near Susanna's Place because it was in the way. We could have sited the church building a little differently, or designed it to fit around the birch, but we knew the tree was diseased and dying anyway ... it's life was close to an end and we'd be damaging the root zone so much that the weakened tree would not survive construction.

The birch was infested with birch borers -- beetles and larvae. These are the same insects that are killing birch trees all over Helena and other parts of the west. When a birch or aspen is infected with borers, the tree starts dying from the top down and many people don't notice their beautiful trees are slowly dying because they don't look at the top branches. By the time we notice the problem, it's often too late to save the tree. The borers are always present in our ecosystem. But when trees such as birch or aspen are stressed by many years of drought, they cannot flush out the borer larvae with a healthy flow of sap. That allows the borers to set up housekeeping and do their damage to the trees. Montana has had 8 years of severe drought. Our town's birch trees are in grave danger unless we get more rain or water them adequately.

I write this to give you some background into why the old birch was removed when church construction began. Many church members were saddened by it's demise. The decision to cut the birch was made easier when we thought of planking up the wood from the tree and using it in the new church building. Tim Carney has had the birch wood drying and aging in his shop for about two years. He recently finished making a beautiful table for St. Paul's which will be used to hold the book of memorials in the new lobby.

Have you ever heard of the idea of the Wounded Healer?" Who would you turn to in a time of crisis when you need true empathy? I turn to those I know have experienced something like what I am faced with. Someone who has grappled with -- and survived -- the difficulties of life. Someone who is, who has been, wounded themselves. Wounded by cancer, aids, depression, alcoholism, societal prejudice, a broken heart or the loss of a loved one. A therapist who has suffered from depression knows the way depression feels -- and not just from book learning. A healer who has suffered from crippling arthritis might have the greatest empathy for a patient's struggle with pain. Recovering alcoholics are often the best folks to come to the aid of fellow alcoholics. They know the game. They know the wounds. Someone who has lost a child may be able to give the greatest comfort to parents of a stillborn baby.

So what does this have to do with a birch tree and a table?

As he worked on the table, Tim realized that he was working not only with wood planks, but also with the spirit of the diseased birch tree ... and he intuitively used a poetic metaphor of how being wounded, being frail, being damaged and making mistakes can make us beautiful. And strong. It's not the only way to transform yourself -- but it is one way.

Birch table with floating top
Originally uploaded by timcarney.

At first glance, the wood planks appeared ordinary, nothing to write home about. In fact, the wood was punky and full of rot. Tim wasn't even sure he could salvage enough from the entire tree to make one small table. One night he came home from the shop full of excitement telling me the wood turned out to be beautiful -- and it was most beautiful where the tree had been "hurt" by the insects and fungus. He chose the birch planks with care, noticing where the tree had been tunneled by borers. In those weak spots, fungus had invaded, giving the wood grain a rich, dark gleam. If not for the damage, these birch wood planks would be unremarkable.

Tim had found a way to create something of great beauty from an old tree's wounds and "ugly" parts. If we don't die from our illnesses ... we are often made stronger ... and in some ways, more beautiful. We come back to our lives and our communities filled with a renewed sense of the preciousness of life. Our spirits have more depth, more dimension. We have gone through the fire, through sickness and trouble ... we have come through to the other side where our wholeness contains our wounds, our "ugly" parts, our shadow selves.

Once there was a venerable birch tree that caused much agony when a community had to choose: whether to save it or cut it. This old tree has come full circle and is back "home" with a message of hope, beauty and acceptance. It will stand in the church lobby supporting the names of those who have died, along with the names of those left behind. Like the wounded tree transformed by love and skill and vision into an object of usefulness and beauty, our own flaws can be transformed into empathy and compassion and solidarity.

written by Maureen Shaughnessy

Sustainable Kitchen Counter Alternatives

A good article in Natural Home and Garden with comparisons on some of the greener countertop options available ... is here.

Okay - Subscribe is now UP and working

I think .....

check it out - if you enter your email address in the little box in the right sidebar under Tim's profile, you should get an email everytime we update the blog by writing a new post or putting up new photos in the posts. I've set it so you will only get a reminder with the first 50 characters of the post. At first, there may be lots of blog posts because I'm still trying to fine tune this thing.

Let us know what you think, please -- that would be exceedingly helpful

Website Almost Ready

Well, Tim's website is kindof up and running. There are still glitches and of course, refinements to make ... Gabe thinks I can do the refinements myself after he leaves today. We'll see about that.

Glitches .... those might be way beyond my capabilities. I still don't have this blog looking and functioning the way I want it to, but that will happen eventually. In the meantime, if you are reading this and have a spare few minutes, I would truly appreciate it if you would head over there and try it out (click on the word "there".)

If you notice anything at his website that either doesn't work ... or could be improved, please please let me know. Remember, we're going to be adding lots more portfolio photos.

You can email me at timothyswoodworking(at)gmail.com. I don't know how the site will work on all browsers. We can test Mozilla, Safari and Explorer. If you're using Firefox, Netscape or something else, it would be super helpful to get feedback from you on how the site looks and feels.

Testing Slide Show thingie

Deleted the slide show because it's not what I want yet.

We're just getting this blog fine tuned, so this slide show is probably not going to stay. We're trying to figure out an easy way to make a simple, elegant slide show to augment a single photo in the blog ... but this one has way too much clutter and even has google ads (!!#$*!) hidden in the background! Plus the slide show button (above) is way too small. I can hardly even see it w/o my reading glasses!

I want to have, say one photo of the rocking chair, and then a simple button below the photo that says something like "To see more, view the slideshow" and it would take the person to just the slide show, not to the flickr page. I don't really want the flickr page to show up at all on the blog, but I may change my mind about that.

If anybody is reading this and you know how to do what I describe above, I'd sure appreciate some advice.

New Website Up

visit www.timothyswoodworking.com