Welcome to Medullary Ray

Documenting what we produce as Makers is as important as creating! Sometimes that is a great challenge. Equipment and space are crucial to getting the results we desire. I often am so exhausted after a job that I forget to take photos altogether. I have forgotten so many times that I now give myself a reward when I remember! Then there are those times when I take a thousand shots and not one of them are truly representing what I see before me. No matter what, taking the photos has it's own ups and downs. If you can afford to hire a photographer  then by all means do! Give them plenty of notice when you think you will be ready for them. Good communication goes a long way! If you find a good photographer you can afford, their work can give your work a power boost! Sending a project off into the world requires letting go. Taking the photos myself helps me golf this transition. I get to look over every aspect of the work and glorify the best view, that place where you h...

check out my post titled "Documenting Our Work" to read more about this furniture Made from American Cherry this is a Dresser which incorporates a headboard and more. The clients who commissioned me to build this have a bed in the middle of their room with a four sided vaulted ceiling reaching its peak in the center. As you can see this is much more than any old headboard. It is also a dresser, two bedside tables, reading lights, bed cubby holes (at the top of the pillow area), and it is a wire chase for any electronics you may want to store in the cubbies. I might as well add that the headboard on top is a sculpture.  Stay tuned! Today was photo day so I have many photos to filter through and work on. I will doctor up the background on the pic here and remove the wheels from the dollies! :-) This measures about 8' 4 1/2" in length, aprox 28" deep and under 5' in total height. Commission me to build your next furniture!

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...