Welcome to Medullary Ray

Work is flowing in and out of the shop!  Here is a recent custom project I have been designing and building for an awesome client in Austin, TX. He wants to 'wow' his wife with this incredibly meaningful gift. Click here for more info about this piece Together they traveled to Scotland and saw the Kelpie tombstone below. We used this image for the main inlay in the top. Every bit of inlay supports the water horse and Celtic theme. I even carved the pulls like waves of water.  The box turned out beautifully! The Kelpie (water-horse) design on the top was inspired by a gravestone in Scotland: I hope it will hold her finest pieces and bring her peace and joy when she reaches into it at the beginning and at the end of each day.  Velvet lined drawer with walnut dividers . . . Made of Leopardwood, walnut and Maple and African Blackwood. hand carved legs accent this piece As my professor said "she is one very lucky woman". Enj...

Auto mechanics are fairly accustomed to people wandering into their shops with broken down cars or maybe the number one visitor is trying to find directions somewhere. I've done it, have you? In my wood shop I am pretty tucked away and if I have my doors shut it often means I'm concentrating! But occasionally I'll get a visitor. Woodworking is one of those things that many people are curious about. They like to look. Changing out a fuel filter is a bit less romanticized in our culture, wouldn't you say? One day I was busy working on the finish of my Mondrian Inspiration (the post right before this post) and in walks a computer engineer. She immediately was drawn to it, said how beautiful it was, loved touching it, and told me about how it reminded her of circuit boards. I could understand that even with minimal information about circuits. The next time she saw it we closed a deal on making a dining room table specifically with her circuit board designs. She has be...

Creativity is like riding a bike. Y ou might be a little rusty at first, you may even fear falling off, but then you feel the wind through your hair, you find your balance and wonder why you haven’t ridden in years! More and more people are embracing creativity in some way because they feel the need for connection, expression and the acknowledgement of who we are. The act of being creative requires us to take risks. Most of us learn by the time we are in middle school that we had better stay comfortable and safe and not take any more creative risks. Somehow, transitioning from stick figures to realism is a daunting task. Go figure! We Americans want successful results right away. Do you know some people spend their lives drawing the figure? Somehow, as our brains develop, we never make it back to the drawing table and we continue playing it safe. Making furniture is already a bunch of hard work, why make it even more difficult by changing the design? I could be mak...

I'm so excited to be back in the shop again! I'm crafting a dining room table (sketch right) with a big nod to Piet Mondrian . This table is made mostly from previously used lumber . . . the top is made from 4 x 4 floor beams that I took out of my house and the legs are made from glu-lam beams that were removed from a clients home. The slab is 2" thick, 86" long and 41-1/4" wide. This beauty will seat 8. The clean straight lines of the slab are such a contrast to the vintage lumber I began working with. Originally I was going to make a workbench top out of the floor beams and then I started milling them up and saw the grain was so beautiful and tight I decided to go a bit more formal with it. When its finished it will have a warm and inviting, comfortable yet stylish look and feel to set the stage for the right dining room! Check back for more updates soon! At the other end of the shop I'm making a very sexy jewelry box made from a discarded pi...