About Luke and his Woodwork

Hi, I’m Luke. I’m a woodturner. I take trees and I turn them into round objects. I have a small workshop over by the seaplane landing site in Sausalito. I’ve made friends with a lot of the arborists around Marin and some in the East Bay so I get a lot of my wood from them. Sometimes a customer or a friend will also let me know about a tree coming down on their property. I don’t actually cut down trees but I make sure my chainsaws are always sharp so that when the arborists call, I’m ready to go get the trees before they go through the chipper. I need the wood to be fresh, that’s why I don’t buy lumber. Instead I get to choose which chunks of the tree I want, and I get to choose how to cut it in a way that I think will look the most interesting. When people check out my pieces, they seem to like hearing about where that tree grew, and how it grew that would lead to the different patterns and textures that we see. It’s interesting that sometimes someone will choose a piece to buy and then learn that they lived not too far from that tree! It’s pretty nice to be able to see the whole process through — from a tree in a yard, to a slab, to a rough bowl blank, and after a year of curing and a whole lot of wood chips, see it turn into a beautiful salad bowl. I like hearing about how my pieces are holding up with my customers and I appreciate when they send me pictures of them using them. I learned a lot of what I know, mostly through trial-and-error, YouTube university, and I’ve had a couple of very generous mentors.

On the weekends, you can usually find me at the farmers markets or at a craft fair — most often with my family. If I’m not in the workshop, working an event, or taking care of baby Charlie, I’m probably trying to squeeze in some wing-boarding or mountain-biking.