Dear Friend,
I was born and raised in the German speaking part of Italy, called South Tyrol. For 10 years or so, I made a living playing music all around Europe. I was a “one-man-band”, guitar in hand, drums on my back, harmonica propped around my neck.
Always marching to the beat of my own drum, I found my way to the wonderful world of woodworking, the focus of my creative energies over the past 25 years. I had no formal training, relying instead on my imagination and my fascination with the beauty of wood as a means of honing my skills.
I use a chainsaw, bandsaw, scroll saw and a number of sanders to cut, shape and grind my wood. Sustainability is very important to me. As an artist, I feel best when I can add value to a piece of wood that in most circumstances would be discarded. I use the entire tree: the lumber to build and sculpt, the twigs and sawdust for inlays.
Most of the woods I use are from the West, Oregon and California. It is important that I select each piece, for in each piece lies the art, waiting to be revealed. Many of the pieces I select have a fungus that causes discoloration, known as spalting, in the wood. Like a painter, I use that color variation to turn plain-looking wood into something far more exotic and alluring. Nature and art collaborating!
Other natural characteristics, such as holes and cracks, give me the opportunity to inlay twigs, rocks I find hiking, different colored eggshells, grains of rice, bricks, aluminum shavings from my broken lawn chair…
In my shop I surround myself with chunks and cuttings of burls and logs, all inspiring my imagination. As I work, I determine the shape and form of each piece, always allowing the wood itself to influence my work and design.
I exclusively use a scroll saw to cut each tower of my landscape castles and villages. With the right angle and a few precise cuts I’m able to create wooden towers that burst in and out of chunks of wood with the flick of a wrist.
I really love what I get to do in life!
Until we meet again-Buon Viaggio
Uli Kirchler
