Katharine Hepburn
In 1994 my father bought property in our home town of Canton, Connecticut to build a house. The property was on the top of a road called Bunker Hill. Growing up I rode on the bus all the way up the hill every school day. It was next to Patric’s white house and Sharon’s house was down the driveway next door. I remember desperately trying to smooth out the crease my mother permanently ironed into my jeans so it looked wrinkly and cool before Sharon got on the bus in the morning.
My father cleared the lot years later. He had Steve, a local arborist and good friend, fell the trees and then he had our neighbor Norm drive up with his portable bandsaw and we milled them into slabs.
There was both White and Black Birch trees, a Cherry tree, a huge Red Oak, Hickory and Ash. Steve had a 4 wheel drive dump truck and together with my Father, Grandfather, and my best friend Greg Chester we loaded up all of the wood in the dump truck and drove it up to my father’s property on “up on the hill.“
We stickered and stacked it on the front porch of the cabin that my father and I finished screening in the previous summer. It was a lot of work. My father was strong in his 40’s and seemed to enjoyed this kind of work. Greg and I were the youngest and pretty hard workers. We had been helping each other with chores since we were kids so we were a good team. I was impressed with my Grandfather, a 5’6” Portuguese man in his 60’s, who lifted their share of the heavy wet wood along with us.
”Up on the hill,“ was an old apple orchard and cabin a mile up the hill from the house I grew up in. It was previously owned by the Crowley’s who were great friends of my parents. Carol and Dot owned and operated the Canton Creamery. Back in the day they really sold cream but I remember it as a feed and supply store. They had a small house across the street from the creamery and we visited all of the time as kids. I have clear memories of Mr. Crowley flossing his teeth in front of us with an elastic band he grabbed from door knob to the kitchen pantry. Everyone knew them in town because of the creamery and the town was tiny and everyone did actually know each other.
One time we were visiting and a guest came in a limousine with a driver. My father, sister who was 3 and me at 5 talked to her for a while. She had a gravely voice like the Canton librarian who read us stories and my father said Katharine was her sister. My father must have had some kind of previous knowledge of this visit because before we left he had her sign a book title Katharine Hepburn. When we got home my dad gave the book to my mother who got very excited by the signature. Then she said, “wait. . . you brought the kids to see Katharine Hepburn but you didn’t bring me? She was a little perturbed. Well Katharine Hepburn loved to visit the “Up On The Hill”property because the Crowleys were great company and it was a charming apple orchard on top of a hill with views of the whole Farmington Valley.
Technically the property was landlocked. Mr. Crowley made a hand made road up the steep hill that was only accessible by 4 wheel drive vehicles or walking a trail that went through a few different properties. Fortunately the hills were too steep for building so besides the cabin on the 17 acres there was nothing in front of the properties but woods. The road went strait from the Crowley’s corner to up on the hill. As they got older one of the adjacent property owners let them build a dirt driveway from the town road through his property to access their apple orchard. He let them use the road and Mr. Crowley paid him for his kindness with apples.
Well one day I went up to the Hill and the door to the porch had been broken and bunch of the wood was gone. The nice leveled stickers and stacked piles were pushed over and the nicest boards were missing.
My father let the police know of the break in and thievery. I was ignorant of the politics of the property so I assumed it was just a random break in. It was a small town and after my father passed I learned the neighbor who wanted the property for himself, and cut off my father from driving through his property from Morgan road when he didn't get it, was a strong subject.
The wood showed back up in the Cabin a few weeks later. The cops were friends with the neighbor and let him know that if he happened to have taken the wood he should return it. At least that is what I heard happened. I guess I will never really know.
Having been stolen once the wet wood dried on the hill for years. After going to school in Colorado I followed my collage sweetheart to NYC where she was an assistant for Annie Libowitz. I worked for a construction company with a woodshop we set up in Dumbo, Brooklyn. At one point my boss encouraged my to make my own work in the shop so like an idiot I brought a huge load of the wood to Brooklyn to start making with.
We actually didn’t get the big cabinet job we set up the shop for and whatl I didn't realize was that my boss stopped paying the rent on the space. One day I go to work and there is a different pad lock on the door. I called my Boss and he said he didn't know anything about it and said to go to the office and talk to Jacob.
The office was a small room you entered from the street. It had couches and a reception counter like a waiting room but like a deli in a dangerious neighborhood the counter had very thick clear Polycarbonate plastic that protected the store clerk from the customers. I would say like a bank but a bank is too nice. This place was dingy and depressing. I walked up to the counter to talk to Jacob but he recognized me and would not talk to me. He refused to say anything behind his thick plastic divider. He seemed busy. He had red hair and red beard. His hair grew like tendrels from the front of his ears past his chin. He had a clean white shirt, nice black jacket and a black brimmed hat. I loved the way the Hasidic Jews dressed. To me they had a style that harkened back to another era. He was ignoring me so I took a seat.
I sat for over an hour before he came out very upset. I stood up from the dirty seat when he came through the door.
“The marshall has already been here. Everything was done legally.”
“What was done legally? What do you mean?”
He repeated himself a few more times motioning me towards the door gently. I followed his herding he said,” it was all done legally” one more time, Looking down he said, “I am sorry” and shut the door. I was confused. I walked back towards the subway passing the building and noticed the plywood over the windows wasn’t fastened well. I had to see what he was talking about. I gave it a light kick and it fell in easily because it wasn't fastened at all. I slid in the window of the old shop. It was entirely empty. Only the giant German made Martin sliding table saw remained probably because it came in with a fork lift. All the tools, benches, desks, cabinets, walls, plywood and my wood was gone!
I stood there in disbelieve. In the center of the shop was a sturdy cardboard box with a red electric sauna machine my father had given me on top. It was odd. I took the sauna off and the box was filled with my photographs and journals. I grabbed the box and left through the boarded up plywood window I came in. It was broad daylight but Dumbo was empty back then. Just Pedro’s restaurant and a bunch of industrial shops. Still I hustled up to the subway conscious I just left through a window clutching a box, holding back tears.
I sat with my box on my lap. The clanky piss yellow lit train shook and squeeled and I held tight. I transferred at Delancy and got off at 2nd ave and Houston. That is where all of the cab drivers hang out because of the awesome Punjab Deli I get Chai from. Well, I must have looked like hell. I felt it. As I exited the subway a cab driver said, “hey man do you want a ride.” I said, “I can’t afford it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just down Houston to Ave B.” He said get in. “I won’t charge you.” I got in and he drove me home. It was the nicest thing. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I had my belongings back. At the time the writing was everything to me because I wanted to be a poet and writer. Everything in the place was gone but this box. It was like a super natural force preserved them. A benevolent spirit or Angel who knew the writing was too fresh and uninhibed to let slip into the garbage with all of the other papers in that office.
Plus my photographs that were spread out drying from fire hose water that had dossed them when our guests accidentally caught our Brooklyn studio on fire. The journals were spread out drying too. They were not as damaged. The fire happened a month earlier and my boss offered the shop to dry things off in. Nobody was using it.
To my employer’s credit what the landlord’s did was entirely illegal. Being a landlord himself he knew the laws. Technically they can’t touch a tenant’s belongings for a year after they stop paying rent. My Mother really took it personally. She wrote letters to my work with the a bill for the cost of the wood. The wood was gone. It was all in vain.
Then one day I got a call from my Boss. He was all bussiness. “Do you want your wood?”
“Yea of corse.”
“Go pick it up at the wood shod next to ours.” He demanded sternly.
I said,”great what time?”
“Tomorrow 10:00am.”
“Thank you so much! I really appreciate it.” I was curious so I asked but I wish I didn’t. "This is amazing how did you do it?
He said, “I told them if they didn’t give you the wood I would smash there knees with a baseball bat!” He was furious. I didn't ask for details .I just wanted the wood back.
The next day my friend George and I showed up with a rental van and grabbed about half of the wood I brought down. It seemed like most of the Cherry was gone. The shop workers were not happy to give it back and I was grateful to not to have come alone. I did’t mention the whole knee smashing thing to George until we were in the truck driving away.
I drove the recovered wood back up to Connecticut and stored it in the Barn on my mother and father’s property. About a year later George invited me to a shop of a woodworker named Andy Black. He was in Dumbo down the street from Manny’s old spot on Jay Street. His shop was full of brand new tools and it was big. He took the opposite route as George, Jaren and I with our shop. We purposely stayed small with used machines so we could make our own work. Andy Black was complaining about how he was stuck making cabinets for architects in order to pay the bank for the machines. At that point I was happy for our way of doing things. Then I notice my live edge cherry stack high on a big metal shelf.
I asked where the wood came from and he said a woodshop went out of business up the block and the landlord put everything out on the street. He got a lot of tools too.
Our employers tools” I said. “That is my wood,” I said looking in his eyes. I milled it with my father myself. That was not fair what those landlord’s did. I got some of my wood back. I would love it all.” I got excited at discovering it and it all came out. I probably should have tried a less direct route. He said, “it was on the street. If I didn’t take it someone else would have.” He felt no obligation to return it to me. I am still curious what, if anything, was made with that hCerry. Did he make something cool or just use it to edge plywood?
I moved to Los Angeles soon after. Meanwhile the wood from Bunker Hill continued to dry in the barn. A month later my father passed. He was only 61. It was brutal. I realized I was not milling anymore wood with my father and this wood became very valuable to me and my brother. There was still wood drying inside the cabin “up on the hill.” another break in accured and my brother thought he noticed wood missing. He decided to move the rest of it down the hill to the barn on my mother’s property. There it dried safely on a concrete slab at the back of the barn.
A few years later I noticed little dust piles in the drying wood. I called an exterminator but he would not spray the raw wood afraid I would get sick when milling it. I tried spraying the pile with store bought insecticide but it didn’t help. When my mom sold the house we moved all the wood to her current home. I sprayed each slab with a Borax solution before stacking it. That killed all the insects but the damaged was done. They had gotten into most of the wood.
Before using the wood I power washed it then let it dry another year. Now after being stolen twice evicted from NYC and attacked by insects I am finally using this wood. Lots of people, including my brother, think the wood is ruined. To some extent I can see that. However, when I questioned using reclaimed old beams in NYC for cabinetry my boss simply stated “all nature is beautiful. It is the wood workers job to discovery and display it.” I take that to heart with all of my work and with this wood especially.,
There is so much story in this wood. It is gift from my father that I still get to use after he is gone. I am very grateful to use it and foundly remember my father when I do. I think of my grandfather who was really excited to help and is also gone. Greg as well. Milling with Norman was a lesson that lead me to use urban salvaged wood in Los Angeles. I am also grateful to my mother for her help in the eviction recovery and storing it all these years plus in a way my old boss too for accidentally losing it but putting in the extra effort need to get i back. I am also grateful for my brother for securing it from the hill.
I am finally making with it. I made a bench for a best friends wedding out of Red Oak. It is finished with a vinegar and steel wool solition which creates a chemical reaction with the tannins in the oak and over an hour the clear liquid turns the pale grain dark grey brown. Then I finished it with tung oil which gave it a black walnut tone.
I made The Rainbow Hassock next out of White Birch. It features rainbow dot upholstered moss cushions that grows from the top and bottom of the table top creating a combination coffee table and a Hassock in one piece.
Next I used hand made Japanese paper to created embossed block prints from cross sections of some of the most chewed wood. I embossed these prints with the help of a veneering vacuum press to try and imagine the cathedrals they carved into the wood creating their home. I imagine a whole generation of wood boring insects called this home for a few generations and I wanted to honor their presence and acknowledge their vital ecological role in the decomposition process in the forrest. I am sorry for your final demise at my hand.
Now I am working on a kitchen chair prototype. The seat is carved from wood where the insects ate the top layers away. I just carved it down a little more to create a saddle seat and I was rewarded with solid wood below that had tiny pin hole carvings that create a beautiful texture.
and more is on the way:)
Spalted White Birch
Nibbled Ash
Ash
Ash Shorts
Holey Hickory
Hickory
Modern Day Pedros
Spalted Hickory
Black Birch
Black Birch is a softer hardwood and tastes like birch beer. it go the most damage.
Curvy Cherry
Inked Black Birch
Noir Cloud Cathedral hand rubbed, embossed block print
Orange Cloud Cathedral hand rubbed, embossed block print
Rainbow Hassock
Wormy Oak Chair
