my name is charlie baker i'm an artist and builder and i create mostly by weaving materials found in nature a lot of what i create i strive to make it look as though it could have grown that way combining natural materials in the most organic way possible [Music] she's out of frame there she's in the frame there she is let's see where she goes she's going under the wood rack and we'll see her for a while where were we going um your favorite aspect of the process oh yeah at first i just really enjoyed the process of foraging taking beach walks or walking through the woods and recognizing certain shapes that spoke to me and it wasn't until i started playing with some of these materials that i realized i was good at it and it was something i wanted to keep doing with some projects you start with the drawing and you find the materials later sometimes the design process just starts with playing with the material you know you want to use and seeing how it fits together and the overall form kind of takes shape just from a little experimenting sometimes the material selection has to serve various purposes both an aesthetic purpose if it's a piece that's going to be outside and needs to be rot resistant there are certain species that are going to last longer and sometimes you have the freedom to just pick a material based on the aesthetic based on what shapes or colors or textures are appealing to you i tend to gravitate towards twistier more curvy shapes i feel like when they're put together they create a sense of motion in the final piece there are certainly days where things are falling into place and you find that rhythm and it's very enjoyable when you cut a piece or or or bend a piece just right and it fits right in there it can be very easy and enjoyable and exciting but there are certainly days where you feel like you're fighting a little bit sometimes you just need to take a break and take a break from the material or the project because it can be a very tedious process and and if you're not enjoying it sometimes it can translate into the final project so um okay i would say my favorite most exciting part of the process when i reach that tipping point where you can just sort of see that your original vision is coming to life it's hard not to just sort of stop and and admire it even though it's not quite done my largest piece i've created was a series of human-sized bird nests that were roughly 10 to 12 feet diameter and there are three of them total connected with bridges my favorite work memory would be working on the nests and feeling like i was part of a community of nesters because i was surrounded by just a deafening chorus of birds doing their work while i was working in this grove of trees one of the pieces i'm most proud of was a eight foot diameter globe i made out of mountain laurel twigs it's a series i want to create over time of geometric shapes done with natural materials currently working on a pyramid version slightly smaller the eight foot diameter ball was very ambitious this time i'm going to go a little smaller with the pyramid shape so i use laurel a lot when i'm selecting branch material it's not a branch it's a shrub that grows in the understory but it has very twiggy appearance to it laurel is typically found in kind of specific places where it likes the acidity of the soil and it likes the species of trees and it's kind of hard to find those spots that it's likes and it and is growing abundantly of course my exact spots i keep top secret but this batch came from out in eastern long island so here we are in a spot that i found a few years ago in an area of long island where mountain laurel happens to grow quite abundantly mountain laurel has a natural resistance to rot and bugs i've always been drawn to this look of the bark and the way it grows grows very twisty wavy seeking out the light in a dense wooded areas where it generally grows but it's the best rot resistance that i know of in a sort of branchy looking material which makes it great for this project generally look for ones that are mostly dead as you can see this one has hardly any greenery on it but we know it's not quite dead and starting to rot because it has just a little greenery left and that's one that'll probably eventually die but i'm going to get some good use out of it instead of letting it rot here in the woods and that's that so when i head out into the woods i don't really generally need much in the way of tools i have my loppers these will allow me to cut pretty big material quickly and easily they also function as a spiderweb stopper i hold them a few inches in front of my face because nobody likes a solid mouth full of spider web i have my smaller hand pruners to trim off greenery or smaller diameter branches and for bigger diameter material or if it's hard to reach inside with the loppers i have an arborist hand saw that i bring why is it that shape i don't know why it would be that shape to be honest but every tree saw i've ever seen has got a curve to it so as a general rule i almost never take things that are a thriving healthy species i like to take things that are abundant and not in any way going to harm the area where i took them from so you have a lot of criteria that needs to be filled when you're selecting a material luna come on there you go this is my helpful assistant luna before a piece is done she needs to do one last quality check and make sure everything's well screwed in and you know tip top sometimes helpful sometimes not so helpful this is so far about two to three days including the frame with the globe shape the mountain laurel that i was weaving together kind of just kept going on as a continuous circle almost a repeat of many circles and different diameters the challenge now is to to try it where where you have to actually turn a corner it'll be kind of an experiment on how the material will come together when we turn the sharp edge at the bottom i'm trying to make it look as natural as possible almost like root flare of a tree when the tree meets the ground and at the top it's going to be another challenge of the puzzle piecing of all three sides coming together and trying to make it as a perfect spire as possible really only the first layer of branches are actually attached to the frame and then most of them are either just tucked into each other or screwed from one piece to another as i'm assembling it i'm using very curvy pieces but i like the way they kind of naturally move around each other almost as like a braided rope or a basket and i try to picture how they want to be married to one another so it's been sort of a experiment and learn as you go to see how the form is kind of taking its own shape as my experience as a woodworker there's definitely some engineering that comes into play with some of the pieces i create they can't just look pretty they have to be sturdy for example the walls of the nest have to serve as a safety barrier because the nests are raised so most of the puzzle-pieced twig creations are fastened with thousands and screws also always keep in mind that where the screw isn't going to exit into place where it's going to be visible which is sometimes tricky and when you're holding the piece in with one hand and having to start the screw it's always fun sometimes it'd be nice to have three hands i would say my most used tool when i'm doing the puzzle piecing of twigs is the band saw just allows for intricate curvy cuts or shaving little bits to get that fit just right sometimes it just sort of slots its way in and you know that's where it's going even if it wasn't where you originally wanted to fill it just found a home and you knew it wanted to be there the hardest part of finishing it off and filling the last bit of voids can sometimes be the most time consuming because you're finding you have one destination for it to go and you want to find that perfect piece to fit in that spot whereas when you still have multiple holes then you can kind of shop around for where it where it seems to be want to go i would like to think that when people see my pieces it gives them that feeling that you get when you're out in nature and combining that with craftsmanship that i hope inspires people by the care and the work that went into it that's recognized but also has a look to it that that maybe nature could have created it and it could have grown that way you know a combination of craftsmanship and what you'd naturally find out in nature i obviously have an intense appreciation for the already sculptural pieces that that nature creates on its own and in a way i just feel like i'm borrowing and combining things that are already there because i think nobody can create these shapes better than mother nature [Music]
