Ebony

Cocobolo

This is an incredible wood to work with. Smooth or rough it is beautiful. It's a wood that you cut more than sand - like something half-wood and half-oil. Thin pieces are exceptionally musical, any bit of gliding past a silver wire or tapping a pearl suggests a note like a smoothly worn beach slate about the same size, or a little clave.




Cocobolo is rare. I'm lucky to be working with some wood left to me by someone moving their woodshop, wood which they got from someone moving their shop before that. It's old, and very dark on the outside. After a few months the lighter tones you see here will be darker and the color more uniform, but the surface is so fine in texture that you see everything - dark as it can get - and the fullness of that color is a knockout.

Experimenting with wood rings

Brazilian cherry makes a great wood for testing small shapes because of its incredible strength and evenness of grain. It's not as rare and chere as ebony or cocobolo, but it has knots that appear like fossils at certain angles to the face, as in the 'big facet' ring to the right.

Tulipwood

AKA 'pau rosa' and 'pinkwood', Brazilian tulipwood is of the Dalbergia genus and informally known as a true rosewood. It is dense and has an amazing brightness - when I'm working it I almost want to say humor. Alive, it is small enough to be considered a shrub (reports The Wood Database - good source). Maybe that's why.

More ebony

Few woods have the glow and softness of ebony. The evenness of the grain is easy to work with and results in a smoothness and accuracy of shape that is easy on the eye as well.

Ebony rings

Heart pendants in rosewood and cocobolo

Happenstance

Sometimes when a piece is cut and sanded, but not finished or attached to its fellow parts, it's interesting to see it stand alone, like these poplar rail supports on the contrasting surface of the old burnished steel of the table saw. As an abstract shape it can inspire a completely different piece down the line.

Key Fobs & Bookmarks

Bookmarks, cookbook marks and key fobs are all made with remnants from our shop. Woods shown here include mahogany, cheery ash, maple, and walnut.

 

 

Walnut Yoga Blocks

These yoga blocks are 3"x 5"x10" single pieces of walnut. Typically, blocks are made of much cheaper lighter woods and glued up from smaller pieces. Granted these are heavier, but if you're a serious yogi and you want a pair that stays at home, you will appreciate single blocks like this as much as their owner does, and she really does!

Octagonal wood drums w/ wood 'skin'

Shoosh Photographic 'Peaces'

Mosaic cutting board

PUG! Muddlers

Small wood blocks

Maple & cherry bookend

Earring Stands

Storm King Mountain

Hudson River Mist