Jeff Strickler

Every piece of wood has a story. Jeff gets to help tell it.

Wood is an extraordinary medium, offering a rich interplay of form, pattern, color, texture, and weight. Light refracts within the grain — a phenomenon known as chatoyance — creating depth and quiet movement beneath the surface. With care (and sharp tools!), wood is eminently workable into almost any form. A wonderful source for exploration and expression!

Wood is an organic material that carries the record of a life lived. Each tree, and every piece shaped from it, holds a singular history written in its grain: shifting patterns of grain, color variations, knots, voids, spalting, and decay. These are stories of time, weather, stress, growth and resilience.

It is Jeffs privilege to help tell these stories. Creating each piece becomes a conversation with the material; one that inspires — and often guides — the final form. His role is to reveal rather than impose, creating objects that are visually compelling, satisfying to hold, and respectful of their origin.

Jeff’s work centers on urban “found” wood — trees at the end of their life, or lost to storms or landscape change, and often destined for mulch, firewood, or landfill. Working with this material, he aims to give it renewed presence and purpose.

Many pieces begin on the lathe, where form emerges through careful removal. As new surfaces are exposed, the character of the wood is revealed. Sanding and finish treatments bring out its grain, color and luster. At times Jeff incorporates color, inlay material, or metal to introduce texture or contrast, but always with the intention that each piece remains, at its essence, a wooden object.

Every new surface reveals something unexpected. Jeff’s hope is that each finished piece preserves that sense of discovery, honoring the life of the tree and helping to tell its story.