The fire was followed by a period of grieving and then by an incredible lightness, freedom, and mobility.

The most precise work is generally done by hand, with hand tools. Some people rely on machines for their precision, and my way of working is backwards. I rely on the machines for doing the gross stock removal and then, when it comes to the final refinements and fitting of joints and things, making things work together, I rely more on sharp-edged tools that I push by hand.

The site I landed on feels much more isolated than it really is; it's almost magical. Within its limited radius, there was a whole range of the local ecology.

There remains this belief that the work itself can have an identity that can speak, whether it's through beauty, or through ugliness, or whatever quality you put into the work. The work doesn't have to be a transparent vehicle for you to say things about life today.

The fire was followed by a period of grieving and then by an incredible lightness, freedom, and mobility.

The work is flowing from an inner knowing of how things really are.

I think of moving as a kind of saving grace.