Derek Secor Davis is considered by peers to be one of
the region's finest craftsmen, able to boast of clean joinery and well-finished
pieces of furniture. But this woodworker feels most satisfied when his work
appears ready to fall apart.
After decades of traditional woodworking, Davis has dived into the world of
whimsical, sculptural furniture - pieces that are functional but could stand
alone as art. The artisan will carve salvaged wood on a band saw, shaping it
into cones and spheres that make up, say, the base of a table or the leg of
a chair. Most pieces appear to be precariously stacked planks of wood and spheres.
Or, in Davis' words: "It looks like boards piled up with rocks, on the
verge of collapsing."
The work is playful, but it's also a statement about nature, our feeble existence
and the state of the world today, he says.
"Any look at nature reveals a world that is remarkable in its precarious
balance and inevitable disintegration and change," he says. "This
ever-changing world is a constant source of inspiration for me."
Davis, a soft-spoken man who is not prone to self-promotion, has made a name
for himself in 30 years of woodworking by his fine craftsmanship and free artistic
spirit, his peers and gallery owners say. He's largely self-taught, having spent
summers working in carpentry to earn a living after college. Davis' resume is
filled with impressive accolades. For several consecutive years, including 2002,
he has been selected to appear in the Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art show
- an annual exposition put on by dozens of galleries in New York and Chicago.
He was recently featured on "Lynette Jennings Design" - a home design
show on the Discovery Channel - and will be featured in an upcoming book by
Dona Meilach, who is an expert on contemporary art with wood.
"Weight of the World" by Davis
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Davis' work fun, Functional
Continued from 1D
It's time Davis was recognized on a larger scale, says gallery owner Mark Masuoka
of Carson-Masuoka Gallery on Santa Fe Drive in Denver.
"What's interesting about Derek is his combination of being an artist,
a sculptor and a furniture maker. ... I consider him an architect, too,"
Masuoka says. The gallery carries several pieces of his work. "I love his
passion, and his work is so distinct."
Woodworker Glen Kalen, who has followed Davis' work for 20 years, agrees.
"I'd say he does his work with a lot of integrity," says Kalen, who
lives in Jamestown. "He's really freed himself up from restrictions, and
that's brave. What he is doing is exploring his own creativity, and that is
chancy."
It's especially chancy in a rough economy. The Denver gallery has sold three
of Davis' pieces in the past six months, and he's begun to look for carpentry
work to be able to keep making furniture. His work ranges from $5,000 for a
lamp that also functions as a table to $9,000 for a large table.
Davis traces the roots of his chosen career back to the fourth grade, when his
dad, an architect, brought home a replica of the Chapel at Ronchamp, a landmark
1956 French chapel by Le Corbusier. "This curvilinear, sensuous sculpted
structure really struck something in me."
He majored in music theory at Colorado College, an experience that has heavily
influenced his woodworking today, he says.
"I'm always thinking about rhythm and harmony, and dissonance."
He says the creative process begins with an idea, perhaps from a dream, followed
by furious scribbling on paper. Davis will carve shapes out with a band saw
and bind the elements together using steel or wooden rods.
If he were to try to define his work, which is no simple or easy task, it's
a body of spheres and rich splashes of color that uses salvaged wood and recycled
industrial materials.
The spheres, big and small are colored in milk paint - an old fashioned blend
of pigments, milk protein and clay slip, which gives visual texture or a "burnished
, clay-like appearance". Sometimes he will set a sphere on fire, scorching
it to a deep black with a acetylene torch, Then he will sand it, to show the
various colors shining through.
"It's all very unorthodox," Davis says. "One thing led to another;
I never thought I'd be doing this."
Davis has completely moved away from purchasing expensive hardwood that's smooth
to the touch. Instead, turns to his own innovation and resources.
Outside the large windows of Davis' woodworking studio, nestled in the forests
above Gold Hill, the artist finds inspiration - as well as raw material - in
nature.
When a piece of Ponderosa Pine fell on his property, for instance, he turned
it into the base of a table. The latest of his experiments involves tabletops
with inlays of spindly Aspen twigs and the cross-section of saplings.
"I think this has real potential," he says.
Much of Davis' work is defined by salvaged wood, but with a touch of industrial
materials. A friend once gave him rusted, cast iron balls that came from an
old ore mining site. Miners would use the balls to crush rocks, hten separate
the rocks from the ore, Davis says.
For one piece, he painted an iron ball red, like a berry and turned it into
a random design element that stuck out form the lamp.
The merging of nature-made wood and man-made steel is a statement of the unusual
balance of nature and man's influence in the world, he says.
There is one more, important element of Davis' work that he shares. Anytime
he makes a hollow shape, such as a carved tabletop, he sticks a time capsule
inside. There is a note inside an hourglass-shaped table in his studio. "It
is a statement of the world," Davis says, "and that we are on the
verge of war."
For more information about Derek Secor Davis, call (303)459-1005
Waste disposal yards close doors to rummaging
After years of buying expensive hardwood to make sculptural
furniture, Derek Secor Davis discovered the beauty of turning lumber, headed
for the landfill, into art.
The woodworker enjoyed the days he would rummage through piles of wood and scrap
metal at Western Disposal or Eco-Cycle.
"The trick was always to get to the good plywood before the bulldozers
would come," says Davis, who built his home west of Gold Hill entirely
from salvaged wood.
Western Disposal and Eco-Cycle no longer allow artists like Davis to scour their
sites for gems, however.
The doors closed because of safety issues and liability, says Gary Horton, president
of Western Disposal.
"After 9/11, insurance went up and we had to be more restrictive,"
he says. Last summer, they closed
the grounds at 5880 Butte Mill Road to salvaging.
Boulder County makes the rules at Eco-Cycle. Jeff Callahan, the county's resource
conservation division manager, says the new recycling center moved a little
more than one year ago from old Pearl Parkway to 63rd Street and it was not
set up to accommodate rummaging at the new facility.
The 10-foot tall, constructiontype bins are unsafe to climb into, Callahan says.
Someone could unwittingly end up dumping materials on top of a person inside.
"Admittedly, there probably are materials that can be reused," he
says, but it would be too difficult to set up a system to pull the good materials
out.
- Julie Marshall
ON THE WEB
More samples of Davis's work. www.dailycamera.com