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mar

@marbeckwood.work

new baby reveal 🐈‍⬛

September 13, 2025 at 2:50 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

very happy with how this project is finally coming together!!

a small wooden form comprised of 9 wooden slats bent in a “U” shape and cut into angled wedges. the wedges are glued together to make a half circle.

September 3, 2025 at 1:17 AM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

the best way to start the morning is watching ‘possums run back and forth across the backyard - in daylight! seems like they were migrating to a new home and our backyard is commonly used by local wildlife to cut through the block

an opossum the size of a small cat sits in a grassy yard and looks in the direction of the camera

two opossums running across a backyard toward a gate in the back corner

May 24, 2025 at 3:50 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

i made these yesterday and i’m very proud cuz hot damn they’re gluten free baby

a tray of freshly baked gluten free croissants that look so damn good you wouldn’t even guess they’re gluten free

a tray of freshly baked chocolate croissants with a couple rings holding rolls of scrap cut off bits as well. the lamination on the dough is absolutely incredible

April 28, 2025 at 2:25 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

my brush fiber has finally arrived! i can make bristles for the brush handles i’ve made! tampico and arenga

two bundles of long fibers wrapped in brown paper and labeled with their weights. the larger bundle is a lighter cream-colored tampico fiber from agave. the slightly smaller bundle is a dark black-brown fiber, arenga, from palm trees.

April 4, 2025 at 12:06 AM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

“home” work in progress - picking the sawdust out of the tunnels has been frustrating and i don’t have the right tools at all (i’ve been using some large sewing needles 😅) but i realized it’s house-shaped and decided i am going to keep it this shape, next step sanding!

spalted hickory

hand holding a small piece of wood full of bug tunnels. the wood is shaped like a wide house, the triangle making the “roof” offset slightly to one side. the wood is a warm brown with lighter and darker grain lines and spots of gray and black spalting as well. the bug tunnels have been carefully cleaned out.

April 2, 2025 at 3:05 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

finally spent some time in the shop today and made some progress on my next coopered box! this one is a hexagon, made of spalted hickory that another member of the guild left on the scrap shelf! there was a ton of it this is just a small bit! #woodwork

a tall hexagonal column made of pieces of a light wood, covered in small pieces of blue tape to hold the corners of the pieces together. the wood has a lot of variability in tone, from creamy white areas to dark almost black lines enclosing those areas. there are dark swirls and flecks and streaks of all colors, the last remains of a fungus that previously lived in the tree that became this board

March 25, 2025 at 4:38 AM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

when you realize photographing the cutting board you finished is also a great opportunity to show off your bread

quartersawn curly big leaf maple, finished with beeswax

a wooden cutting board on a counter with a sliced loaf of bread on it. the cutting board is decently large, about 11x17 inches, and is made with a light maple wood. there are changes in color, from a pale cream to warmer light browns and peach tones. those familiar with wood might recognize the distinctive grain pattern that indicates the piece is quarter sawn and there are hints of curly figure where the light reflects off the board in stripes perpendicular to the grain.

March 23, 2025 at 11:01 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

gluten free “white bread” sourdough was a success! delicious even at room temperature which is unusual for gf bread!!

the top of a loaf of gluten free sourdough bread. the top of the loaf is floured so the golden crust where the scoring allowed the loaf to grow through clearly. it is scored to have a large crescent moon, and inside the moon is a small “burst” pattern of straight lines of varying lengths at splayed angles from each other. as the bread baked and rose and the lines split open, it gave an abstract flame look to it.

side view of the gluten free loaf, it is very satisfyingly round and full, a sign of being well-proofed!

the interior crumb of the gluten free loaf, not as full of bubble holes as a gluten loaf, but with a very satisfying distribution of mid-sized holes and very much NOT a dense loaf

March 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

brushes are my current obsession 😍 waiting for more bristle fiber to arrive so i can finish the other two

black cherry wood, tampico fiber, milk paint, shellac

wooden handled brush standing up on a wood surface with the bristles pointed up. the handle is warm cherry wood, the top cut at an angle, with the bristles continuing straight up out of it. the angled edge of the handle where the bristles protrude has a band of green paint over a dimpled carved texture. the bristles are cut at an angle to match the angle on the handle and are all the same length. the whole brush is less than 6 inches long.

two more partially completed brush handles accompany the previously described brush. both handles are much larger than the first brush. they are all made of the same cherry wood with painted accents in the same shade of green.
one handle has a curvy worm-like shape, with two large areas carved out in bean-like shapes that match the curves of the main body. these carved areas are smooth and painted green, the rest of the handle is not painted. the second has a wide, rounded base to allow for a wide sweep of bristles, and a long wiggly handle sticking up from the far side, offset from the center of the bristles, making the whole thing an L or boot shape. there are two painted areas, the toe of the boot, following the grain lines in the wood and sweeps from a thin area on one side up and over to a wider area on the other. the very top of the handle is also painted, as if it had been dipped in paint.

March 20, 2025 at 4:17 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

even if i’d gotten a handle on this particular milk paint previously, painting the carving led to some grain raising issues that i had to figure out but happy with it now! as soon as i finish the shellac i can glue the bristles 😊

wooden brush handle about the size of the palm of my hand. the side with the holes for bristles is at a steep angle relative to the base. a band about an inch wide on that end has dimpled carving and is painted green

March 12, 2025 at 10:08 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

from last night 🥰

February 28, 2025 at 3:59 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

i bought this beautiful wood at the guild estate sale on saturday not knowing what it was and after jointing it, turns out it’s apple! they’re impressively wide boards for apple, so now i guess i will save them until i find something deserving of such wood

two 8 inch ish wide wood boards of a beautiful reddish brown wood. there are streaks of lighter and darker wood, the darker streaks have a hint of purple. there are some dark brown flecks and a couple cream colored flecks as well. to the right are a small creamy white maple board and a dark chocolate brown walnut board to serve as color comparison.

February 26, 2025 at 3:33 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

in january i entered a piece into a juried woodworking show, and today i found out it was not accepted 😢 the theme was renewal, and i reconstructed a rocking chair i found in a pile of trash in the backyard of the house i’m renting. i’m super bummed i wasn’t accepted, it seemed so perfect 🥲

angled side view of a wooden rocking chair made of beech wood. the beech wood is varying shades, ranging from lighter creamy color to a dark chocolatey shade, a result of being in ground contact for years and rotting. the rocking chair has a bow back that has been repositioned to arch up from the rockers on the floor and over to the other side, rather than coming up from the seat. there is a brass pin connecting the bow to the seat, as the bow is much wider than the seat where it crosses. there are 7 flat spindles making up the back of the chair, between the bow and the seat. all four legs of the chair are connected with tapered round stretchers. the closest stretcher as well as the bottom ends of the back legs and the far rocker are all very clearly a new, brighter, warmer wood. these parts have been made with black cherry wood to replace wood that was too damaged to use. there is also a section of the seat that is black cherry. at the top of every leg are three carved bands that have been colored with dark sage/olive green paint.
all over the chair you can see large dark cracks in the wood that have been filled with structural epoxy. over some of those cracks, blue “stitches” have been carved to look like sashiko mending holding the cracks together. these are rows and rows of short dashed “stitches” over areas of cracks.

a closer view of the joining of the seat and bow back with the brass rod. there is a space between the two that is spanned by the rod. the rod comes all the way through the piece of wood that makes up the bow, so on the outside there is simply a brass circle where it has been flushed to the wood.
the seat is made up of several boards glued together, and second one in from the side is the brighter, warmer cherry wood that replaced a rotten piece of the seat. there are multiple holes in the seat from where the back and other parts connected in the original design of the chair before it fell apart and was left behind as trash. on the seat as well as the bow back, there are several clumps of the carved blue “stitches” over dark epoxy-filled cracks.

close up view of the connection between the bow and seat from behind the chair. it is even more obvious that there is a 1 inch or so spacing that the brass rod is spanning to hold the chair back in place.
on the bow arch there is a large dark crack along the length that has multiple clumps of carved “stitches” over it. there are more clumps of carving over filled cracks on the back of the leg, around the three green bands that wrap around the top of the leg.

a pile of dirty rocking chair parts in the grass, from the day i dug it out of the trash pile in my backyard. the four legs are still mostly attached to each other as well as to one of the rockers and a couple boards of the seat, but the rest of the seat is in pieces next to them. the back spindles are much longer than in the rebuild chair, and there are a couple curved arm rest pieces that were not used at all. one is still precariously connected to the part of the seat that is attached to the legs. it’s astounding to know that this pile of trash and chair parts was still useable and turned into the chair in the previous images

February 20, 2025 at 6:04 AM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

two beautiful loaves of gluten free sourdough!!

two perfectly beautifully baked loaves of gluten free sourdough on cooling racks on the stovetop. the front one has two large curved scores that spread to look like two bananas. the back loaf has a large score on the left side and smaller ones on the right side that look like round leaves on a branch. they look so good you wouldn’t guess they’re gluten free if i hadn’t told you so

February 14, 2025 at 9:43 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

loaf número dos

a second unbaked loaf of gluten free sourdough. this time there are two deep scores, a ‘c’ in the top two thirds of the left side and a backwards ‘c’ in the bottom two thirds of the right side. who’s to say how this is going to turn out when it bakes but it’ll definitely be interesting

February 14, 2025 at 6:14 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

when i’m not woodworking i’m working on my gluten free baking! i’ve met a few other celiac woodworkers so far and it makes me wonder if there’s anyway to combine a woodshop and gluten free bakery 😅

unbaked loaf of gluten free sourdough on a floured piece of parchment paper. there is a deep curved score on the left side and the right side has a row of short alternating angled scores that is often used to look like a stalk of wheat. the irony is that there is zero wheat in this loaf of bread, wheat has gluten!

February 14, 2025 at 4:12 PM

mar

@marbeckwood.work

cat psychology thought and question: does my cat think i am drinking out of the bathroom sink when i am washing my face and is he copying me? i’ve had him for 8 years but this is new in the last couple months (he also hasn’t watched me wash my face much until recently)