I love making things out of wood. Handcrafted wood turnings, boxes, clocks and sculptural pieces featuring quality burls and fine woods excite and motivate me. I am particularly proud of my work with burls and bark included—wood that is often ignored by others. Wood, with all its imperfections, mirrors life. Everyone is unique and broken in places; in need of someone to value us and make us shine despite what might be called flaws. As Bob Marley sang, ‘The stone that the builder refused will always be the head corner stone. The things people refuse are the things they should choose.’

My pieces are meticulously sanded and given a fine lacquer finish. They are meant to be tactile. (Go ahead and touch them!) They are also meant to be viewed from all sides. (That means they are perfect for a desk!) They evoke for me the grandeur of our Rocky Mountains and the Creator who majestically crafted them. In them I see the small nooks and crannies and valleys where streams form, climbers scramble up rock formations and mountain bikers ride. There’s no place I’d rather call home.

Everyone has heroes. In the woodworking world, I have three. George Nakashima was renown for his work with walnut slabs and crotches that needed bowties to make them stable enough for desks and table tops. They are forever things of beauty. Michael Elkan was born in Philadelphia seven years before I was born there. He loved burls too. My philosophy of woodworking is much like his: ‘The great beauty of nature's jewels—gold, silver, diamonds and pearls—are hidden at the beginning in their rough state. So, it is with wood, we work the pearls of the forest. Our object is to take this wood with all its history, to learn its ways and make it into things of natural beauty…’ My final hero is still living. He is a woodturner in Great Britain who loves experimenting with color. Stuart Furini has encouraged me to take risks with textures, dyes and colors.