The compelling crafts of woodworking artisans from around Jefferson County will soon be on display for the forthcoming 2022 Woodworkers Show, featuring wood harvested from Chimacum’s Valley View Forest.

A plethora of ligneous pieces will be on show in the American Legion Hall in downtown Port Townsend, including fine furniture, beautiful bowls, decorative pieces, and so much more.

The event is set for
11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5 and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6. Admission is free of charge and more than 20 different booths will be displaying the wooden works of the talented local artisans.

Hosted by Splintergroup — an informal collective of local woodworkers in the area — the show has received support from the Port Townsend School of Woodworking as well as the Jefferson Land Trust.

Many of the pieces to be featured in the event were shaped from local timber harvested at Chimacum’s Valley View Forest as part of Jefferson Land Trust’s ongoing efforts to retain, manage, and preserve the vital, 65-acre community forest.

Two trees were donated to Splintergroup: a big leaf Western maple and a red alder. Multiple woodworkers utilized the donated wood in their crafts for the show.

One such craftsperson, Paul Pearce of the woodworking school’s board of directors, has used the red alder wood to form a lightweight chair that harkens back to a beloved furniture piece from his childhood.

“What I tried to build is a very lightweight porch chair that you can move into the garden on those sunny days,” Pearce said. “The idea of this chair is it’s meant to be moved around the yard. And it’s comfortable, you could spend and hour or two in this chair.”

The inspiration for the red-alder creation came to him as he recanted a favorite family chair from back in the day.

“In our family, we had a pair of wooden chairs, they were our favorites … I always wanted to try and build my version of that chair,” Pearce said.

“I actually built a prototype of the chair out of other pieces of wood to test the height, angle, and back of the chair,” Pearce added.

His porch chair that will be featured in the Woodworkers Show took around 60 hours in total to complete, Pearce estimated.

The two trees donated by the land trust were felled in December 2021, and were selected due to them nearing the end of their natural life span.

After arriving at Wayland Constructive in Port Townsend, owner Cody Wayland milled the timber into boards and dried them, with the wood being made available for local artisans to use in June.

“We’re very excited to be welcoming the public back to the Woodworkers Show again, and even more excited to be using this beautiful, locally harvested wood,” said Seth Rolland, a Splintergroup member and instructor at the school of woodworking. “The purpose of the show is to increase awareness of the variety of skilled woodworkers in our area, and also to highlight the potential market for locally-harvested, community forest lumber.” 

Interested parties can learn more about the event and Splintergroup at splintergroup.org. More info on the school of woodworking can be found at ptwoodschool.org, and go to saveland.org to learn more about Jefferson Land Trust and its Valley View Forest project.