Ejler Hjorth-Westh

"Ken Forden, head man at Whitethorn Construction, asked me to explain why I primarily use local hardwoods. An easy assignment, I thought. After all, I meet students from all over the world as a teacher at the College of the Redwoods Fine woodworking Program in Fort Bragg. And they are all drooling over our local woods: Redwood, Douglas fir ,claro walnut, bay laurel, and the magnificent madrone - arbutus menziesii. Now, I have indeed used the fine woods from all over the world, rosewood, kwila, Swiss pear, doussié, ziricote, pau ferro, ebony, the list is endless. They are part of my body of work.

But exotic is simply a matter of distance. I look at our local woods through the eyes of my students and friends from Sweden, Argentina, Germany, Japan, and I see the most beautiful woods in the world. They grow right here in our neighborhood, these woods. Harvested by our own woodsmen, hauled by our own truckers, milled by our own mills, purveyed by our own knowledgeable experts who know how to treat a log of local hardwood right.

My work depicted here is a salute to this skill of treating the various hardwoods the right way and making them available to the local woodworkers. It used to be the province of "old timers" and it has largely disappeared. But it is alive and well here at Whitethorn Construction."