Master Woodworker Lets Wood Be the Guide

Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “The medium is the message.” A woodworker who lives and works by that creed is Bruce Gray of New Brunswick, Canada. Master woodworker Bruce Gray follows a unique creative process in the work that he has done.

Bruce Gray comes from a family of innovators but came to woodworking in an indirect way. He was born in California in 1957. From an early age, he always enjoyed building things, getting his start with model airplanes as a kid. His father was also constantly building and tinkering with things, and his mother was an artist. His grandfather was a skipper who held a patent on the shield of a ship’s compass and other ancestors had patents on innovations to the cotton gin and typewriter.

He did not go straight into woodworking at a young age. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s in Industrial Engineering. These both make sense, though, as they reflect his interest in nature and in designing furniture for the unique demands of the individual. He claims to design chairs for the individual ordering it, asking what they will do when they sit in it, how they like to sit, etc.

Paramount to Gray’s approach to woodworking is that the wood dictates the form of the piece. He says that his designs grow out of the wood. The results are interesting, asymmetrical designs of tables, chairs, benches, and other works. According to an online article from Telegraph-Journal by Kate Wallace, he begins by molding a clay model with his hands and then replicates that in the woodwork. This is a bit confusing to me because it seems to contradict the idea of letting the wood itself dictate the form. However, his woodwork is definitely not straight or conventional.

The woodwork projects that he has done range from a library system of mahogany shelves to long wooden pens. He is in great demand, currently keeping busy with commissions and his own large project, a custom built house. Called the River House, it is an energy-efficient, “green” house being built on Belleisle Bay on property belonging to his wife’s family.

Unique, unconventional, curvaceous design marks Bruce Gray’s woodwork. He claims not to impose a design on the wood but to let the wood impose its own design.

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