PORT TOWNSEND — The 19th annual Port Townsend Woodworkers Show, presented by the Splinter Group, is set for Saturday and Sunday.
This year’s show is dedicated to one of the show’s founders, John Marckworth, who died in March.
The show is free to attend and will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the American Legion Hall, 209 Monroe St.
“There are lots of woodworkers in the area who mostly work in their woodshops,” said Seth Rolland, a Port Townsend furniture builder and a member of the Splinter Group. “They make various things that sort of go off into individual homes and most people don’t ever get to see the work that’s being done here. So it’s sort of an opportunity to show off what’s happening behind closed woodshop doors in the area.”
The event will include work from 22 local woodworkers, with work available for purchase. The show will encompass a variety of wooden objects, from furniture, to wooden sculptures, instruments, small household items, spoons, bowls and even decoy ducks.
The Port Townsend Woodworking School will have a booth where students will show their work.
Event organizers encourage participants to use local wood in their work, Rolland said. Many of the pieces will include wood from the Valley View Forest in Chimacum.
The Jefferson Land Trust donated an alder and a maple tree from the forest to the Port Townsend Woodworkers Show three years ago, Rolland said. Event organizers had the trees milled and dried and have been passing the wood on to show participants.
Falling into the work
Amy Seidewand said she has always dabbled in woodworking as a hobby, but she happened into the work after burning out as a midwife during the pandemic.
“A friend of mine had a cabinet shop, and I fell into working in this cabinet shop,” Seidewand said. “That was a turning point for me in actually becoming a professional. I very quickly found that I really enjoy doing it much more than a hobby.”
While she still helps out occasionally in the cabinet shop, Seidewand’s full-time work these days is for Rolland, in his furniture making shop, and two days a week for a local sawmill, Trillium Timber Co.
Seidewand said she pulls boards for the sawmill and that it’s really hard work, but one of her passions is to build up the local wood economy.
“After being in healthcare for many years, woodworking is a very lovely profession, in contrast to what my work was, holding sort of heavy things in my work as a midwife, for many years, always being on call,” Seidewand said. “Woodworking is a little different. A bad day in the shop versus a bad day as a midwife are two very different things.”
Seidewand said she is mostly working on small furniture and bowls these days, and that visitors to her apartment often comment on how many chairs she has.
Useful, easy to use and delightful
“I was working at a leading tech company doing user experience research,” Gala Gulacsic said. “All of it was on a computer, especially following COVID. Even interactions with participants in studies were on a computer. The analysis I did and the presentations I gave were on a computer. I found myself really yearning to make something real and tangible.”
Gulacsic started woodworking about a year ago after moving to Port Townsend to attend Port Townsend School of Woodworking.
“Woodworking was really kind of a revelation for me,” she said.
Gulacsic said she found a dedication within herself, activated by woodworking, which she had not previously known.
Gulacsic comes to her work as an artist. Her approach is informed by her work as a user experience researcher, she said. Her research focused on making products useful, easy to use and delightful.
“Part of that process has been, when you make furniture, you build prototypes,” she said. “So you make sure it’s comfortable. If you’re adding a sculptural element, it’s not going to poke you in the eye. So there’s sort of that design process as well.”
Following her completion of the woodworking program, Gulacsic has started building a woodworking business, which can be found at https://www.galarosefinewoodworks.com/.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
