chestnut

Scott finished an Engelman Spruce burl bowl(top) and a chestnut bread bowl. The wood had been a mystery up until this weekend. We had cut up and hauled off a huge stump, everyone had a different idea about what it was, it turns out it is american chestnut which is basically extinct as a result of chestnut blight, a bacteria brought into the U.S. in 1904. Visit the american chestnut society for more info about the tree. This one was huge and must have been brought to moab by early settlers. It was across the street from HMK middle school at the house of the schools namesake, Helen M. Knight. Kind of crazy to find an extinct eastern nut tree in moab? The wood is beautiful.

more

Here are some more pictures of the table. There is one of the black pipestone infinity joint.

table

We have been getting ready for the Moab Artists Studio Tour. We finished a japanese style dining table out of black walnut. We cut the black walnut tree out of a yard behind the movie theater. It was dead but a bit wet. We slabbed it on the saw, stacked and dried it. This week with the help of Dave Sadoff, we joined it with hand turned russian olive dowels and clamped it. Lots of sanding later and sitting on top of solid black walnut blocks the table is finished. We sealed the table with pure tung oil, wiped on by hand.

helper

We are headed to Helper, UT for the Helper Art Festival which runs from Friday through Sunday. Brady finished a black walnut piece, Scott finished some salad tong sets and Katy finished a batch of knives.

alaska

National Geographic came out with an article in their 2007 July issue about logging on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. This is the same forest Scott was arrested on for blocking a road in a formerly road-less area in 2004 with Greenpeace. Here are some pictures from that. National Geographic says that the Forest Service spends 30 million dollars a year on timber sales that bring in only 750 thousand dollars for a loss of $29,250,00. Enough to pay every timber worker $140K a year to stay home. We hope we are creating an alternative to this type of waste and destruction by cutting and milling trees locally and selectively on a small scale.