Ooh, baby baby! A new baby rattle

The baby bug seems to be going around quite a bit these days. I know a few ladies who are expecting pretty soon. One of them is Niz's former roommate and good friend Debbie. Debbie and her partner Matt are living in Chicago and expecting a bouncy boy in mid-March. Their baby shower was this past Sunday, so we decided to make the trip and kill two birds by visiting Niz's favorite furniture store (and my least favorite), IKEA. (I could easily fill an entire post with a rant about my lack of enthusiasm for IKEA's cheaply made and poorly fabricated furnishings, but hey, this is a fun post about the miracle of life and such, so I'll save it for another time).

Anyway, as I've done for several friends and a few clients over the past few years, I made Debbie and Matt this fancy turned rattle. The body is from a scrap of canary wood I found in my shop and the orange plugs are from a piece of paduak I still have from the first chair I made. This color combination is one of my favorites, as evidenced by the other picture, which is of the first rattle I made.

The form of Debbie's and Matt's rattle is inspired by the shape of an acorn (Debbie and Niz share a love of squirrels), though I've also been told it resembles, ahem, something else.

I'll likely be making time in my schedule to make several more of these miniature maracas in the months to come.

Thailand Adventure, Part 2 - Craft & Design

Before I left for Thailand, several people suggested the trip would have an impact on my work. I'm not sure how much the mostly rustic palm and rubber wood chairs and benches I saw will directly influence my work. More likely, I've been influenced by the Thai people's relationship to working and living in the lush, yet challenging landscape and the influence of the uniquely Thai idea of "mai ben rai", or "nevermind", "don't worry about it", "it's okay". My relatives who harvest rubber, durian or coconuts, or clean and cure fish work long and odd hours. And while they sometimes start and end in the wee hours of the morning, day after day, giving all they have, while never showing the slightest bit of worry or negativity. It still feels wonderful to remember how simple, yet fulfilling everyone's lifestyle seemed to be.


I suppose in some ways the woodworking and furniture design reflected this idea too. Most of the chairs and benches I saw were simply constructed, opting for nails over any kind of complex joinery. The decorations were often geometric patterns, subtle curves and naturalistic carvings of animals in palm or rubber wood. You might notice from some of the pictures I've shared that palm and rubber trees are plentiful. I didn't see as much teak as I thought I would.

Surprisingly, I saw very similar designs in most of the wood furniture as are demonstrated in the photo on the right. This was true for other wooden objects, as well.

Like the rubber trees that I was so infatuated with, the bird cages that peppered the houses and businesses throughout the Surat Thani province have become symbols of my trip. The designs of the cages I saw were rough in the sense that they weren't finely sanded or finished. But they were delicate in their use of thin rods for the bars and intricately sawn decorations and turned handles. Of all the souvenirs I brought back, this was my favorite, and I hope it finds a good place in its planned home. I got a lot of weird looks while carrying it through all the airports, and my wife's family seemed a little perplexed that I had bought a bird cage, but didn't have a bird to put in it. Niz's uncle, Na Sok, even chuckled at me when he picked us up at the airport on our return leg. I found out when we got back to the U.S. that he keeps and shows doves. I wish I would have known while we were there; I probably could have talked him into showing them to me, and I would have had another venture on my hands...

Besides bird cages, many families had outdoor wooden shrines of varying sizes painted in bright, opaque colors, though the general shape and design of each was the same. Many family homes and public spaces also had concrete tables and benches painted with bright colors, similar to the designs shown in the photo on the right.

Looking through the hundreds of photos we took during our 3 weeks in Thailand, I realize there's still quite a bit I want to share. I'll post one  more wrap-up of the trip, featuring what I saw at the Big Buddha shrine, in Phuket.

Exploring Thailand Part 1 - Rubber Farming in Na San

My 3 week honeymoon in Thailand was a real adventure - perhaps the most authentic "adventure" I've ever undertaken. My wife and I started in Bangkok on January 12. Her aunt, uncle and cousins - none of whom spoke much English - escorted us around the city for several days. We visited a wide variety of temples, markets and sites that catered both to Western tourists and native Thai people. It was a fun leg of the trip, rich in discovery of kind, humble people and vibrant colors, flavors and - for better or worse - smells - in the big city. Many of the places we visited were also filled with "farangs" (foreigners).

By contrast, Na San is a small farming community of about 2,000 people located in the Southern Thai province of Surat Thani. The people of Na San, including several members of my wife's immediate and extended family, have been harvesting rubber and fruit trees in the region for several generations. Na San is my wife's birthplace, and it served a similar purpose for me as I came to learn, understand and love the Thai people and their work.

Life in Na San seems to be simpler than life in the big city. The pace is more relaxed. While there are busy fresh markets, there are no knick-knack shops selling mass-produced elephant carvings or knock-off Ed Hardy t-shirts. Most of the narrow, one-story dwellings are tiled from one end to the other. A basic restroom includes a sink, a shower head attached to the wall and a modern toilet with a spray nozzle attached. Thai kitchens are similar to their Western counterparts, though most don't include microwaves, full ranges or dishwashers.

The economy of Na San - and much of the rest of the Surat Thani province - is based around agriculture. Rubber farms laid out in long, regular rows sandwich the highways throughout the area. Aside from meeting several members of my wife's family, watching and experiencing the rubber orchards first hand was the highlight of the trip for me. I commented over and over again about how I could have just sat and stared at the orchards all day. The thin trees shoot straight up toward the sky until a few branches bend together to form arches like natural cathedrals.

Many members of my wife's family (above left to right: a few of Niz's family members: sisters Pee Jeeip and Pee Lek and cousin Nong Boy) own rubber and fruit orchards, and they let me try my hand at harvesting the rubber. In fact, I was so excited to work the rubber orchard that I mistakenly got up at 5:30am one day awake and ready to work all morning. Later that day we all realized our language barrier had caused a misunderstanding, but I was ready to go.

Prior to visiting the orchard, I had believed that rubber trees were tapped with some sort of spigot, and that the rubber sap drained out of the tree with little effort. When I did finally get a chance to try for myself, I learned this was very wrong. The work is physical and takes a particular technique. It's usually done in the wee hours of the morning due to the heat too, so men and women both work odd hours several days each week.

The thin bark of the tree is scraped lightly at a diagonal angle down and across the tree. This frees the opaque white sap to slowly seep to the surface and run down into a ceramic bowl. Each bowl looks like it holds about a pint of rubber. The full bowls are then collected into a larger bucket and taken to a market to sell. While we were there, raw rubber was selling for about 90 baht (about $3) per kilo, which I was told was a pretty good price.

I was also told I did a pretty decent job scraping rubber bark, after I got the hang of the technique. My obsession with the trees led me to buy a simple tool used to scrape the wet rubber from the little bowls. I also attempted to buy one of the sharp bark scrapers, but wouldn't have been able to bring it back through security, so had to let that one go. When we go back again, I'm going to see if I can get on the payroll.

Next up: a look at some Thai craftsmanship. Hey, this is a furniture blog, after all!