My work falls into two general categories. I take already beautiful wood and shape and finish it to enhance its beauty, or I start with otherwise unremarkable wood and bring it to life by adding form, texture and color. For reasons unknown to me, working with finer woods often draws me to create my more contemporary designs. Work from more “ordinary” woods often leans toward the more traditional. The finer woods spark my imagination while it is simpler to fall back on what one knows if the material does not fully suggest a certain outcome. I feel that the end products are equally pleasing but in strikingly different ways.

Much of my work is influenced by many years of work in restoration and renovation of early New England homes. As with those homes, the materials I choose for my shop work are almost exclusively native and local and the finishes are natural in origin and contain no toxins. As my work evolves, I am striving to incorporate more of a folk art component and increasingly lean on the use of hand tools to achieve unique results.

Josh Laughlin Tavern Hill Woodworks 78 Tavern Hill Road Putney VT 05346 802 387-4686 jdl44@earthlink.net