Glorimar Santiago 'listens' to World Mix

I fell in love with TerraMai woods the first time I saw them at a tradeshow. The density, presence and depth of color made me see it not as a material for something else, but as an object onto itself, to be revered and admired.

I got to know TerraMai better through my work with EDG Interior Architecture & Design. The firm, based in San Rafael, CA, specializes in restaurant design. We worked with TerraMai on a number of projects and the woods always captivated me.

I began to develop some furniture designs based on these woods. Last year I traveled to TerraMai’s facility with James Konwinski, a master furniture maker also based in San Rafael, who I enlisted to be my partner in this project.

TerraMai’s facility is located in McCloud, on the skirts of stunning Mt. Shasta, surrounded by thick California forests. The yard, stacked high with reclaimed woods of all kinds, is a dream for any furniture designer or cabinet maker.

I wanted to treat the material I selected it as if it was gold, something precious that had its own voice and instincts in the way it behaved and changed itself while being transformed by the craftsman’s hands.

Once I saw the World Mix lumber stacks in TerraMai’s yard, I made up my mind to use this material as the sole language for the piece. I wanted to go through the exercise of letting the material determine dimensions, color, texture and structure. It would take part in the development of the design itself.

The World Mix is reclaimed from cargo ships that come into West Coast ports. It is used as shipping dunnage, or stickers, for cargo traveling from Asia. Although the material is all the same dimension, the pieces vary a bit - 2" to 2 1/4" thick x 3" to 3 1/4" wide x 6' 6" long.

There are also many species in the mix. Some are denser than others and the coloring ranges from dark to light – some reddish, some a gorgeous speckled grayish tone, some yellow, some a dark brown.

The pieces, as they stand in the yard, are oxidized and weathered, adding character and depth to the material and temporarily hiding its beauty as if with a veil. A scraper was needed to ascertain color and species. James selected pieces to represent a diverse range of color.

I am no Michelangelo, but I understood how he must have felt when he was awarded the piece of marble from which he carved the David. The material itself spoke to my soul.

My original designs revolved around large blocks, long solid planks and beams – material I was familiar with from my previous work with TerraMai. After our visit to the yard, I started playing with these original designs to come up with an updated version based on the World Mix stock.

The stock seemed the perfect medium to create something that could grow almost as a stick sculpture. The most important aspect to me was to maintain the original concept that showcased the wood, as an object unto itself, to be displayed for its own merits. The fact that it was a table was simply a happy accident.

The design I selected was a side table that would measure 15” deep x 20” wide x 20” high. I was inspired by the look of the World Mix lumber stacks I saw in the yard. The piece was to be sculptural and true to the material, with the base acting as a pedestal, a prong that held the stylized stack that became the table top.

Back at the shop, James began milling the pieces. Both of us were in awe of this wonderful material and, wanting as I did to keep the integrity of the individual pieces as much as possible, we tried to keep waste to a minimum.

The wood had not been kiln-dried and it continued to expand and contract from one week to the next after James had milled it. This made the construction a bit tricky.

The biggest issue, however, was the weight. A single piece at 2-1/4” thick x 3” wide x 1’ long could weigh as much as 6 or 7 lbs! We even made jokes about using them as dumbbells or selling a dollie that came with the table in order to move it around.

It was around this time that Greg Johnson joined us. Greg is a third-year furniture design student at the renowned California College of the Arts. When I spoke to him about my project with James he offered to help and created a rendering of the design as it stood at the time.

Based on our experience with the material thus far, I decided to simplify.

Greg, James and I began playing with the species for the top, creating higher contrast and a more interesting composition by the juxtaposition of color, grain and texture. The combinations were almost endless. As with all wood, the material is an entity – every single individual piece is different. The experience resembled painting.

Reminding myself the wood had to be the focus, the central element that would guide me, I decided to try to achieve a simple symmetry in the order of species and to keep it simple and straightforward.

We were using 1/4” thick pieces leftover from the original milling. Their thickness and solidity were appealing to me. I already had second thoughts about the 3/4” thick pieces I had originally drawn for the top and asked myself if they looked out of proportion to the solidity of the legs. Interacting with these 1/4” pieces, I decided to integrate them into the design and thicken the top to match the stock of the legs.

To assemble the top, James glued pieces together into groups, then biscuit-joined the groups together. Jigs were created to test pieces and make sure the position for the mortises would be true and square. We used a domino assembly to attach the top to the legs.

The World Mix woods are tropical hardwoods, their solidity and strength stood their ground while we tried to shape it to our whim. Even with the help of clamps and the three of us, the domino machine had to fight its way into the density of the wood, particularly the darker ones, which resembled mahogany in their color, but have the consistency of a very hard oak.

The planning was not easy either. Because the different woods have different hardnesses, the blade of the planer would get caught on some pieces and burn the lighter ones. Greg had to force it through to accomplish the task. Being the junior fabricator, I had to clean it up through sanding. I was glad to have James to guide me all the way.

The final assembly was simple. We clamped the legs to the top and let it sit for a few days. The finishing was done with an orbital sander, using 100 and 125-grit sandpaper. Once again, the extreme difference between the species was screamingly evident.

We then finished it with a matte water-based urethane. The end result was inspiring.

The piece is small but heavy, weighing approximately 40 lbs. It has presence. It shows the stunning beauty of the World Mix in what I hope is an elegant and graceful way. At the same time, its solidity is very natural and true: it feels indestructible.

Designing and making the piece was challenging and fun. It was an amazing exercise, where I chose to let the material be part creator - respecting it, listening to it. After all, not only had the wood come from who knows where in the depths of Asian forests, but they had also been already cut and processed to become cargo stackers sitting on distant foreign ports.

I thought of where all those stacks of wood had traveled to, their history, the objects they had held and how they would have dried up, rotted and disappeared in the salty air had they not been salvaged.

And how now, among the cool hills of Northern California, with a little (or not so little) help from my friends, it had been transformed into a studio piece that will last for generations and hopefully speak to someone else in the future, with the spirit of transformation, history and the pride that comes with saving and protecting the precious commodities that Mother Earth generously bestows upon us.

For more information about this piece, contact Glorimar at glorimar@thinkgreentank.