From A Wood Entry Door or Even Exterior Wood Doors
 to Wood Countertops, its All  
Comfortable Sculpture with Singular Personality
(As published in Log Homes Design Ideas magazine)
By: Matthew Welter

Furniture is not only a consistent presence in our lives; it is wholly integrated, as well as reflective of our circumstance. Virtually omnipresent, we think in it, work in it, eat, sleep and love in it. Literally from crib to cradle we are hard pressed to imagine a world without furniture.

So too, our cabinets surround our lives. They hold and protect our belongings almost categorically. Were it not for furniture, cabinetry and art, our very personalities would be static--lacking the basic tools of contemplation. Perhaps that is why we strive to charge with personality the things that make up our domestic landscape. Certainly our furnishings shape the mood of a room. Always constant, always reliable, we are gratified and strengthened by the things we "hang our hats on".

Timeless Sculptures is a studio and gallery set into the natural canvas of Lake Tahoe's North Shore. There, in Kings Beach a group of designers and artisans work to create sculptures which are furnishings, which indeed take on a life of their own.

I am the proprietor of that alpine workshop. Some 30 years of sculpting animals, humans and abstractions in wood have recently dictated my design of cabinetry and furniture that can best be described as "organic abstractions". To me they are delightful excursions into light and shadow, successful in their power to encourage viewer participation. At once, inviting to the feel and compelling to contemplate, these sculptures are sensuous in the extreme.

Because an heirloom must endure, longevity maintains priority. Cedar, known wide for its compatibility with sun and rain, and too, for its resistance to insects, is held sacred by Native Americans. A natural bouquet of pinks, golds, browns and greys provides distinctive imagery, and cedar branches have impressive sculptural value in their own right. Manzanitta is used where structural integrity is required, as in chair and table legs. Mother Nature was in a creative mood indeed when she created manzanitta! Attachments are notched, glued, secured with screws and covered with pegs to provide an aesthetic, permanent bond.

And how does one create beds and hutches as though they had grown that way? We start with roots and branches, trunks and stumps salvaged dead from the surrounding forests, generally cast-offs of the timber men and climbers. They see only complication in the twisted parts, but we see counter tops and table legs. A tree's limb, scarred and healed becomes a floor lamp's shining pride. A cedar trunk hollowed by fire, and some useless branches become Grandma's corner pantry. Spirited opportunists, we leverage the twists and turns of nature, to coax her hidden wonders.

Nature's hand, however is not exclusive. Human touch becomes evident when the sculptors have their say. Many parts are shaped and formed with careful attention to composition and line. Line with discipline, yet free to portray its own expression. An exercise in visual language and gestural stroke, the technician's influence emerges. The sculpture's "envelope form" is testament to a mastery of proportion and balance. Here, man shares masterful harmony with a state of nature.

Hand rubbed oils celebrate the knots and grain. Even the checks, softened and oiled, allow the wood to tell its story in graduations of deepening hues. The material impregnates and becomes the surface, thereby forming a strident barrier to embrace, and to shield the work from intrusions of wear and weather. Indoors or out, the charm endures.
 
The artist's signature credits the conductor, but nature plays the tune. Now listen close, the piece has rhythm. Nicks and spills will force maturity; they legitimize a need to please -- a registry of service.

The crate is built, and the sculpture sent to some eagerly awaiting place, received, decanted like wine, and proudly displayed.

Now settle in, the sculpture is willing. The house is now a willing home. Furnishings, like fashions are a statement of the times and people who govern its placement. At Timeless Sculptures we custom grow furniture which complements your life and times. Vicariously, the singular personality in the comfortable sculptures may perhaps reflect your own.