Welcome to Medullary Ray

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...

It's like take out, you have to make the call and place your order if you are going to get your dinner! Jo Bradney  still life My last post really got me thinking about the process of creativity. I was explaining that I am waiting for the right design to ‘come to me’ for a box hinge and legs that I have been dinking around with for the past 6 years. I realized that I didn’t say that I actually have to place an order for the design. I set an intention and put the box off to the side while I am working on actual jobs. I don’t know what I will make for it. I try to clear my mind and let the creative department take over. Being a woodworker, I do my best to balance creativity with skilled manufacturing. I did start out designing with a drawing. However, in this case, a drawing just won’t suffice. The particular board that the main box is made from has so much personality that a drawing just isn’t going to cut it. It isn’t simply a question of the size of the ...

I NEED TO SYNC MY iPHONE WITH THE DESIGNS IN MY HEAD. They have finally figured out the wireless sync, so why not? I’m sure someone is working on this right now. I know it may require some intense filtering but sometimes I wish I had this feature. My screen may look like this at times:                                           by Thorsten Nass   Beautiful isn’t it? See more of his work here: http://www.videodraws.me/ I ALWAYS HAVE SEVERAL WOODWORKING PROJECTS GOING AT ONCE One is a jewelry box, or at least that’s what I think it is going to be. I have decided that I will make my own hinges for this and I want them to be sculptural accents made out of the hardest wood in the shop, Vera Wood.   Its green and blue and amber which will accent the fir box nicely. HOW DO I MAKE IT ART? The way I go about ...

Zoom!      Pow!      Sha-zam! I’m catching my breath, bent over holding an aching back and looking at all that sawdust I now have to clean up. Whew, I’m beat! This is ‘me at work’. I sure do make a lot of messes and often I turn and look hoping that I will be able to see some manifestation of all of my calculations, problem solving, testing, gluing and sanding. Nope, I still want more to look at. Seems these days that I set out a task to do and quickly discover that I have to do ten things in order to accomplish my goal. This is why I feel like I'm taking ten steps back for one forward! I can't help but wonder if this happens in your line of work too. How do you get through it?!  Please tell me, I want to know! I often hear from people that my line of work must feel so good because you can actually see a product at the end of the journey. This is true and it does feel good if you like wh...

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...

9/27/11 My client, Jeffrey, and I imagined, designed and built the first point of purchase (pop) product display unit for tünr last summer. Tünr was the imagination of my brother Jeffrey coming to life as he dreamed, planned, proposed, organized and made crucial decisions. He had this idea; “Fine Tune Your Feet” . This is what he called tünr the sock and lace company that is now launched on the Internet and in street boutiques across the country. He approached me about designing and building tünr’s product display units. He thought of his product as the ‘tie and cufflinks’ of the sneaker world. He wanted wood. He wanted inlay, but could he afford it? He thought the tünr dresser would set off his product and set the tone for the concept he wanted to sell. We loved it, we thought the boutiques would love it but when he hit the streets with the idea of it the stores were afraid it would be too big. It’s 18” deep, 38 -1/2” wide and 31”/41” tall at the back. So I finis...

This is an updated photo of Portland where I live now. I work close by the river, the same Willamette river I wrote about: On my walk this morning I paused to admire the Willamette River. It is wide, and this morning, quiet, peaceful and full. As always it was flowing past me, underneath my footbridge.  The body split apart and came back together again with grace and ease.  After admiring it’s awesome beauty I was reminded of my work and the feeling of running in place. On the surface the river looks so peaceful so laid back like nothing is really going on. It’s so full that rapids aren’t even showing where they usually highlight the rocky substrate.  This river has a powerful underbelly. The current that lies beneath is hard at work making smooth the rocks that nest on its great gut. It seems so much like my own work. I work and work and sometimes it doesn’t look like anything is being done. But I know what is going on, even if underneath.  I am th...