Dream Forest Studios

I begin this journal by saying that now, I am a proud father. My wife and I brought our daughter home from the hospital a few days ago.  It is a strange fate we should suffer so much fear and doubt… over so small a thing. Such a little thing. A little thing that opens its eyes upon me as her gateway to the world.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to take training to become an EMT. One of the courses I took was about pediatric emergencies. It taught me that one of the most beautiful sounds that an medical practioner can hear is a screaming baby. It’s got the ABC’s. That means it’s got an Airway, it’s Breathing, and the heart is Circulating blood.

My business, and my passion are not to bring the world hundreds of thousands of pieces of furniture from a mass produced line, inflexible and unchanging, nonthinking and standardized. China and Ikea have done that for us already. Millions and millions of copies, all alike. Non-passionate and desensitized to the beauty of the world.

My business is to work with myself and my clients through a world who needs more people who see more than what a machine can cut. It is to work through a world who is desensitized to human foibles, not by adding a firehose to a flood. It is to put ideas to work, pencil to paper, paper to wood, and make my favorite piece to be last one I was working on, and my best piece my next piece. Through each dovetail I chisel, each tenon I rout, I create craft. One joint at a time.

My creative passion has created my business – Dream Forest Studios. Dream Forest Studios prides itself on being a custom wood studio which is driven by a balance of my creative passion for fine craftsmanship and client satisfaction. My belief and hope is that fine furniture pieces, properly cared for, last generations and become heirlooms to be treasured, touched and admired .

One of the main reasons I enjoy this work so much is because of it’s timeless beauty, and the memories created around our simple existence. We as human beings interact on multiple levels with both the inanimate and the animate. We leave our imprint on those objects, and people, and in-turn those objects and people leave imprints on us.  I enjoy the simple tranquility of nature. It is this connection I take and put into my furniture and craftsmanship. The harmony and connection I get as I feel a piece of wood being worked through my tools is something of unspoken beauty. Watching shavings peel away from a piece of rough wood into something that may inspire a connection to this world that is unique to the observer. 

I have many memories of my grandfather and this really old rocking chair that he had when I was growing up as a kid. When I was very small, and I came for a visit, I remember sitting in that chair and being rocked to sleep in it.

A few years ago, my wife’s grandmother passed away, and we were fortunate to get her old bedroom furniture. My wife and I are proudly expecting our first born this July. This past weekend, my lovely wife and myself had dinner with my mother-in-law, and she told us how happy she was that we have the furniture in the family. She remembers as a little girl how her mother meticulously cleaned and maintained that furniture and how she slept in the bed, both of her brothers slept in the bed and used the dresser and bureau.

On a humorous note, my wife told me of an old yellow chair that she hated so much as a kid, that she bit just to let her parents know how much she hated yellow.