Woodworker in the news!!!

[Jon Olson]

I was pleasently surprised this morning to open up the newspaper and read a great article on a young woodoworker. Have a look. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/home/10873898.htm?1c

Enjoy. His website is really great also.

Jon

[Chris Padilla]

Aww, jeez, Jon, I gotta sign up and everything...how about cutting/pasting the article??? :) I know, pathetically lazy I am! :D

[Byron Trantham]

Here, here Chris!

[Ralph Morris]

As Chris Padilla says "cut and paste", can u do that for us?

[Neil Clemmons]

Go to www.bugmenot.com and enter the site - it will give you a password.

For the Mercury news, it lists:

User - bugmenot@bug.com
PW - buggeroff1

they have quite a few log-ins for the free newspapers that insist you register.

Happy Surfing, :D :D

Neil

[Silas Smith]

Ask and you shall recieve


SAN JOSE WOODWORKER USES TRADITIONAL TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES TO FASHION FURNITURE WITH STYLISTIC ECHOES OF MIDCENTURY MODERN
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By Kim Boatman
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Mercury News
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<!-- begin body-content -->Jared Rusten might reside in the here and now, but his heart belongs to another era.

Working in an austere old building on Julian Street that, according to lore, once served as the San Jose headquarters for the Hells Angels, Rusten is something of a throwback. Using vintage tools acquired for a song here and there, he crafts sculptural yet functional wood chairs that pay tribute to mid-20th-century modern design. His is a love affair with wood, a time period, technique and craftsmanship.

So much about Rusten, just 28, and his work rings of the late 1940s.

``I'm enamored with that postwar boom time period,'' he says, calling his look -- rumpled khakis, vintage ranger whipcord jacket and vintage Dickies work shirt -- `` '40s-era shop teacher.''

Although he ventured out on his own just a year ago after apprenticing himself to several Southern California woodworkers, Rusten is garnering attention and a following. His work was showcased in San Francisco at a Design Within Reach studio show Thursday night, which included friend David C. Thompson's short film of Rusten constructing a chair. His chairs are sold in a Solana Beach gallery, and his work was exhibited at Harvard's Graduate School of Design last September. His trademark Palo Alto chair won an award for ``Best Use of Traditional Woodworking Techniques'' at the well-respected Del Mar Fair Design in Wood show. He's landing commissions, including the construction of an artful staircase for a woman in La Honda.

His sleekly modern Palo Alto chair, which sells for $1,500, also showcases his woodworking skill with the joinery evident on the chair arms. The wood is left unadorned other than a hand-rubbed oil and varnish mixture. Rusten doesn't want stains to obscure the natural beauty and intriguing geometry of the wood grains.

In truth, Rusten makes the sort of chair he'd buy himself.

``I'd like to price them so the younger sort of professional hipster graduating from dorm room furniture will have the opportunity to buy,'' he says. ``A lot of modern furniture, the pieces are just not well-made. I build with all solid wood.''

He builds with the sort of integrity not often found in our era, using mostly North American hardwoods. Rusten is tickled when he can save a tree destined for the dump; his stunning Los Altos chair ($5,000), with its sinuous slats, is constructed of claro walnut from a municipal tree cut down in the Southern California city of Downey. The tree wound up in the hands of a pallet-maker, and Rusten traded chairs for the wonderfully patterned wood.

Rusten's skill and care is evident in each piece, says Shari Fox, owner of Trios Gallery in Solana Beach, in northern San Diego County. She impatiently awaits the arrival of new Rusten work.

``His chairs are just so beautifully crafted. They've got a nice style to them. They're comfortable, they're functional,'' says Fox. ``But the craftsmanship is just incredible. We see a lot of furniture here. You just look at every tiny detail of his work, and you can tell he does it with a love of the craft.''

Rusten draws designs in his sketchbook, finding inspiration in unlikely places. Right now, he fancies a plain little green-seated office chair he found in a thrift shop. It has an early Silicon Valley look that Rusten will borrow from and expand on. But he's true to his love for the vintage when it comes to designing furniture.

``Other designers might use 3-D modeling or computer software to suss out their design, but I really like the shock of seeing a chair when it's first assembled,'' he explains.

Rusten will plan the chair in full scale drawings and construct mock-ups of plywood and junk wood. But perhaps the best way to measure his work is the simplest: He sits. ``I'll spend hours sitting in it, just watching TV,'' he says.

He and wife Karen, 27, who teaches autistic children, are inveterate board-game players who often have friends over. Rusten quietly observes how his friends sit in his chairs. He realizes, for instance, that one of his chairs doesn't work well for his 6-foot-4 buddy.

It's the very necessary pairing of form and function that makes chair-building so intriguing for Rusten right now. Although he does build other pieces, he likes the intimate relationship people have with their chairs.

``A table, a cabinet and a dresser are things you'll only have contact with occasionally,'' he says. ``A chair will envelop you.''

Growing up with an art teacher mom in San Jose, Rusten always had a love for art and graphic design. But he lost his heart to woodworking when he decided to build a box for Karen, then his girlfriend, eight or nine years ago.

When he investigated educating himself in woodworking, he wasn't satisfied with the college programs he saw. Rusten has always been more of a doer. So he gave himself a practical, hands-on education in both woodworking and business by offering to apprentice with Southern California woodworkers for minimal pay. At one point, he was working for three woodworkers spread all over the Los Angeles area at the same time. When he decided he was ready to venture out on his own, he and Karen returned to San Jose. (His longing for the Bay Area is one reason his pieces are named after Bay Area cities.)

He has been selling a chair or two a month, in addition to other projects. And he brings all the energy of youth and the passion of the truly inspired to his work. Brimming with ideas and developing demand for his work, he finds the days too short.

``If I had one wish, I'd have a really hard time deciding between traveling back in time to the 1940s or being able to function without ever sleeping,'' he says.

[Tom LaRussa]

Enjoy. His website is really great also.

What website?

I can't find a link in the article...

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Great article! It is always nice to see woodworking getting exposure :)

[Jon Olson]

Sorry guys, daughter was sick all weekend, so I was unable to add the artcile. Thanks Silas for cutting and pasting. The website for the artist is www.jrusten.com He's a very nice guy from some email contact we've had. the wesite is very creative and is work is well done. Hope that link works.

Jon

[Chris Padilla]

Sweet stuff...maybe we can take classes from him, Jon! :) David Marks is too far away! :D

[John Olson]

Boy I try to keep a low profile and I read that my name might be in the papers
LOL John Olson