Rustic Reconciliation
Daniel Mack's rustic furniture embraces the spiritual delights of wood's natural forms.By Beth E. Wilson. Upstate House, no. 22 (May 2005).
Almost three decades ago, Daniel Mack abandoned the daily grind of a career as a television journalist and, throwing caution to the winds, made a gigantic leap of faith into the world of rustic furniture making. Initially drawn by the grounded aura of working with natural materials and the appeal of working for himself, he has become something of an evangelist for the spiritual delights to be found in sorting through a chaotic jumble of locally harvested (or, more accurately, salvaged) cedar and maple sticks, and bringing them into order as recognizable pieces of furniture.
The process of finding the proper place for each unique piece of wood is, for Mack, more of a question of collaboration than coercion; he loves the mysterious, Jungian symbolic dimension that arises from the preservation of the wood's natural forms, forms that are brought into heightened focus through their judicious manipulation into the manmade architectonics of furniture. More recently, he's captured this spirit in a series of small desktop sculptures he likes to call "imaginal objects."
Charismatic and articulate (he's written four books on rustic furniture), Mack alternates between making his own witty, sophisticated, and, yes, still rustic furniture, and outreach, teaching Zen-like workshops on rustic furniture making at Omega and organizing Woodlander Gatherings-sort of a Burning Man-style get-together for folks who work with natural materials.
A far cry from the primitive kitsch of roadside chainsaw sculptures, Mack's stylish custom chairs, tables, beds, and architectural treatments (staircases, columns, beams, and so on) unabashedly pursue the primal gasp inspired by a specific kind of beauty-beauty that draws deeply from the well of nature, thoughtfully balanced with the mundane utilitarian needs of mankind. The end result opens a new window onto a reintegrated world, offering a unique, aesthetically engaged path that mindfully reunites us with the natural world that we've always been a part of after all.