My name is Don Wood, and I make this stuff. I started in the trades about 23 years ago, building sets for places like the American Repertory Theater and Blue Man Group. In the 90's, living in Houston, I switched to finish carpentry and upon moving to Brooklyn in 2001, found that the high end design here, with its use of an ever-expanding grab bag of materials, called for a mix of both backgrounds.
I first started thinking about ducking out from beneath the wave of new materials when I spent 5 months living like an early american settler on the PBS series Colonial House. It was an amazing experience, and gave me the opportunity to work with rougher woods, stone, mud straw and, well, goat dung as building materials. The idea of using materials and techniques that were centuries old really grabbed me. There is something about performing a physical action and realizing other people, thousands of years ago, were basically doing that same action, hoping for the same result, sharing at that moment an exact mindset, across a huge barrier of time...it's a cool feeling.
When I got back I went back into high-end finish work and "boutique carpentry" but always took the opportunity to pour a wheelchair ramp or mud a shower mortar bed. A few years ago, the economy was nice enough to give a lot of us in the building trades a lot of extra free time, and after a few months staring at the phone, I decided to give a hobby a full time try.
My first concrete pour was an education. At first it was maddeningly liquid, then quickly became less so, and less amenable to change or persuasion. It is now those two qualities-initial plasticity followed by almost geologic permanence-I find so fascinating. I am not sure I will ever do a concrete pour that doesn't involve at least a brief moment of panic, but the unknowns involved, the alchemy, makes each one interesting. The same holds true when I'm buying an auction lot of barn boards and beams. Pulling a pile apart, loading the truck, you never know just what you're going to find. Gems. Nightmares.
I very much enjoy the process, and have learned to enjoy the process of selling at the Brooklyn Flea as well. I hope that comes through in the pieces and in your dealings with me. Thanks for stopping by.
This site, like everything, is a work in progress, and if you have ideas, comments or questions, please contact me through this link.
If you are interested in more inormation about me, you can check out my personal blog, here.
For updates on what goes on in the shop and advance knowledge of one-off pieces I'll be selling at the Brooklyn Flea, follow @fatdogfab on twitter.
Thanks,
Don
