My work with wood has evolved through distinct phases shaped by place, practice, and purpose. I spent time living in western Pennsylvania, surrounded by the material culture of Amish country. While their craftsmanship was part of the landscape, its influence on my work was indirect; what stayed with me was an awareness of how deeply skill and material knowledge can be embedded in a community.

I began incorporating wood more frequently once I arrived at Claremont CA, using it in non‑functional ways to explore structure, behavior, and form. Those early experiments treated wood as a sculptural medium, something to bend, test, and articulate rather than resolve into utility.

After returning to New York, this resurfaced in a more practical context as I began teaching furnituremaking at the now‑shuttered 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. That shift reconnected me to ergonomics, proportion, and the physical relationship between body and structure. Today, my approach blends those two lineages: the exploratory, non‑functional investigations and the functional clarity demanded by furnituremaking. Each piece balances utility, comfort, and material expression, shaped through both traditional woodworking and contemporary fabrication methods.