Woodworker's Journal 2001-25-2, страница 28

TODAY'S WOODWORKER

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Drafting a Woodworker's Life

By Joanna Werch Takes

Gail Fndell oftrn makes trays while planning designs for larger projects.

TM ail Fredell says her wood-■M working projects have a "very architectural kind of quality." That's nol surprising, since architecture was her first career. She stuck with it only four years, though, before admitting that she preferred the opportunity woodworking gave her to be in the shop, making things, instead of in an office, letting someone else execute her designs.

Twenty years later, Gail's still doing w(K)dworking. and. as program director of the woodworking department at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, she's also helping others get out of Ihe office and into the shop. She teaches, she arranges artist residencies — and she does woodworking.

/I pedestal table tright) is a painted pine base and a bubinga top Gail said her table series started as portraits. 'It's obscure, bul that's what they are.'

The pine, painted oak and maple bench (left) plays up individual elements.

For the past couple of years, she's been building mostly benches and tables. The architectural influence, she said, shows up in how she constructs her pieces: "Things are finished as individual components and assembled at the end." In addition to wood, she uses a lot of stone and metal, as well as paint, to highlight the individuality and contrast of the different elements.

The choice [of material j comes with what works in the piece," Gail said. Wilh wood, "I choose for color and a graphic kind of quality, whether it's pattern or grain." She also tends to choose solid wood — mostly because she doesn't like working with veneer.

While Gail's designs are functional objects, like entry hall benches, they also have a more spiritual quality to them, ll wasn't always thai way: "In the early 80s. the furniture I made was architectural; slick, with lacquer and chrome," Gail said. "Il was what everybody was doing, but it was very abrasive. I thought, 'I don't know if this is the direction I want to keep going."*

Inspired by the ocean in San Francisco, where she was living, and the mountains near a family cabin in the Sierras, she began incorporating landscape elements into her work. For example." you might look at an entry hall table and say that kind of looks like water,*" she explained. Ironically, the Rocky Mountain

backdrop to her current home and job has not provided the same inspiration. "I don't know what to do with it," Gail confessed.