(Cathy Jordan| Photos courtesy of Red Chair Gallery)
Woodworking has been part of Cathy Jordan’s life since early childhood. Even when she was too young to work with tools, she spent a lot of time with her father, a professional welder who enjoyed woodworking as a hobby. “I hung out with him while he was working,” she remembers. “He was very instrumental in giving me access to the craft.” Jordan’s father also did leatherwork and metalwork in his free time, but it was woodworking that ignited her passion, she says. Jordan’s woodworked pieces are showcased at Red Chair Gallery in November.
Quilted maple, zebra wood, bazinga, and Hawaiian pheasant wood are some of the unusual species she uses in her pieces. They include bread boxes, jewelry boxes, fly fishing boxes, and bottle openers. She fills the tiniest boxes with packages of Himalayan pink salt. Jordan also does commissions for special items, like the steampunk style clock she is currently working on.
Jordan prides herself on using “minimal power tools and a lot of elbow grease” in her craft. Her three primary tools are a table saw, a chop saw and a benchtop sander. She eschews planers or joiners, which most woodworkers use. Her goal always is to create a piece that reveals the grains and shapes within the wood.
Jordan spent part of her childhood on a ranch outside of Yellowstone National Park and when she was 19, she opened a frame shop in Cody, Wyoming and taught classes on framing. She also worked for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody for 12 years, which exposed her to its wonderful collection of Western art. Later, she changed her profession to massage therapy and moved with her husband to Dallas, OR. Four years ago, they retired and decided to move to Bend “because of our love of the trees and the outdoors here.”
Here in Bend, she began to get serious about woodworking again after her grandson asked her to make a treasure box. She searches for “special pieces of wood,” often repurposed, which she sometimes finds at garage sales or on the side of the road. “I love to have a story behind each box that I make,” she says.
Here are a couple of her stories: On a trip to Hawaii, she met a woodworker at a farmers’ market who introduced her to different types of Hawaiian wood. “He gave me big chunks of wood,” she remembers. “I shipped my clothes home and packed the wood in my suitcase,” she laughs. She has used cedar posts from her old home in Wyoming, which was once a Pony Express station. “So the Pony Express horses were tied up to them,” she remarks. Undoubtedly, there will be many more stories to come.
Contact Cathy at cjdmassage@gmail.com or 971-237-2986 for more information.