L. Post Rustics

Adirondack Rustic Furniture and Art

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People Near Here: Woodcarver

Derek Muirden shares the story of Jillian Post, a wood carver with talent that clearly runs in the family. Watch Derek’s Rustic Living Segment on Larry & Joanne Post: Learn more about the…

Our woodcarver and daughter at L. Post Rustics.  The Derick Muirden and PBS!

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For The Love of The Beaver

Our family has a deep respect and appreciation of the beaver.  Beavers are amazing creatures who play an important part in the environment and help it to thrive by creating new habitats and ecosystems for multiple species.  So, it made sense that our passion for beavers would eventually inspire us in our artwork.

This is how it started.  Jillian decided to create a beaver diorama.  She became quite absorbed in the details.  As you can see, there would be an underwater scene as well as a land scene above the water line.  The beginnings of a beaver felling a tree is in the upper left corner.  Fish will live in the beaver pond and the splash of the tail is forming on the water.

Jillian carved logs to look beaver chewed.  We loved this concept for pilasters.  Initially, the design began in a different direction, but then we decided to entertain the idea of the cabinet being somewhat in the shape of a beaver lodge.  Fitting, we thought.

Here is the start of the doors.  Ryan developed this design with the thought that beavers create tunnels in and out of the ponds and lodges.  The circular area represents the opening to the “lodge”.

Ryan worked with cherry burls to create layering and an anchor point for the pilasters.  We used some textural tamarack bark for the sides and planned on pulling that same detail up into the top section of the piece.

One of the pilasters set in place to figure out where they would best look.  So much planning of the details.  If one thing looks off balance, the the piece won’t be a success.  Burls create the skirt like base.

You can see where the top of the cabinet once was more opened.  That changed.  In the business of creating art furniture, changes occur--trial and error, even when you create the basic design on paper or Sketch Up.  We all scrutinize, and decide on changes.  Sometimes, we try to resist changing something we aren’t totally happy with, but eventually we come to grips with the fact that the work done earlier must be deconstructed for the success of the piece.

Now we are reconfiguring the top--developing the new shape.  We’ve decided on small drawers instead of doors.

Jillian carved the bow front drawer to look like a poplar log.  The “chewed” branch nubs will be handles.  Should there be two handles evenly spaced we asked.  The answer was multiples, risking some balance, but throwing in something unexpected.

Now the piece is taking on somewhat of a beaver lodge shape.  The twig work on the drawers is coming along, but still so much to get accomplished.  We are pushed to complete this speculation piece in time for the Adirondack Museum’s Rustic Fair.  The clock is ticking and we still have commission pieces to complete.

Twig work on the doors, but we will still need something to frame the circular area.  We called on Jillian to come up with branch work and leaves.  

Here are the doors nearly completed (but upside down).  You can now see the beautiful bird’s eye maple that Ryan chose.  The bird’s eye maple was also used in the top here and there.  We never want one random element if possible.  The designs need to transition to other areas.

It was trial and error for the lighting.  The initial choice was strip lighting, but it cast too much bright light and the intent of the carver was to have the light stream through the “water” as sunlight would stream down into the depths of the pond.

During the evening, the beaver lighting is probably quite indicative of the lighting under the murky water of the beaver pond.  To house the light, we found just the right burl, cut it and hollowed it out, added our LED light for coolness, and, when it cast the perfect light--we breathed a sigh of relief.

We attached the flattened burl to cherry lumber so light wouldn’t escape around the sides and create chaos.  The branches holding up the final roof were pulled from an abandoned beaver dam.  The tops are chewed by the beaver as are the handles on the piece. 

So much thinking, planning and, of course, attention to detail helped create our beaver inspired cabinet.  The base has cubbies for wine storage to give it some more functionality.  We were honored to win the People’s Choice award at the 2017 Rustic Fair--thanks to this piece and our family’s love of art.

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We opened our home gallery this summer.  The decision to do this was exciting for us--to be able to showcase our work and other artisan pieces allows those interested in rustic furniture to have truly unique choices found under one roof.  We may not be in the high intensity tourist areas of Lake Placid or Keene, but new and existing customers seek us out as a destination.  We now offer four rooms full of beautiful rustic art furniture!

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Adirondack Grandfather Clock

Milkweed, so representative of summer for our family.  For us, the milkweed, with its sweet smelling perfume, should be called Aromatic Sweetness flower.  This season brings with it our rustic furniture themed with botanicals and animals doing what they do in the Adirondack summer.

Here is our latest piece--an Adirondack Rustic Grandfather Clock.  We completely love making the grandfather clocks.  They all reflect the season in which we create them.  Jillian has the knowledge and creativity to bring our clocks to life with her masterful wood carvings.  

This grandfather clock is the story of the red fox.  He rests lethargically in the grasses, curled around his bushy tail.

He has glutted himself on the sweet wild strawberry patch.

Crabapples will soon come in season and will be a tasty treat.

Of course, the family all has a hand in this clock. Ryan designed and built the case.  Joann and Larry detailed the case with bark and twig work.  Jillian created the carvings and determined the theme.

Maybe a sad story for the meadow mouse--another favorite meal for the fox.  Lets assume this one got away!

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Adirondack Aquatic Sideboard

Leave it to Jillian to think up the best ideas for furniture to compliment her wonderful hand carvings.  For speculation pieces, she decides what would be the most enjoyable subject matter to carve.

  Summer afternoons often find the Post family retreating to our family lakeside property nestled in a quiet resource management area within the thick forest of the Adirondacks.  Oftentimes, its just a few hours of swimming or kayaking on the 20 acre pond.  Happy times are spent there.  So, we decided to create a piece of furniture that would allow us to share these memorable moments.    

This is the sideboard--the overall shape.  The lake scene is an oil painting by Joann.  The carvings, of course, are by Jillian.  We used cherry, burls, driftwood, cedar flares, birch bark and twigs.

The wood we chose for the top is flamed cherry.  Sometimes called quilted cherry.  This figured pattern reminds us of ripples on the water.  The driftwood log was pulled out of the lake.  As one approaches painted turtles, no matter how quietly one paddles near, they always alarm and drop into the water from their sun basking--plop plop plop.  They then dive down and disappear into the muddy pond bottom.  These guys are on their way in.  

The bigger turtle has his leg submerged into the cherry ripples.

Lily pads and dragonflies adorn this pillar. 

Water lilies float on the cherry sideboard top.

We picked beaver chewed sticks from the water in the spring.  Once they dried, Jillian carved the opposite ends to look like they also were chewed by beaver.  Then, they became the handles on the drawers and central door.  I can’t tell which ends the beaver made.

This was a joyful creation for our family.  Art that truly made us happy.

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Whitetail In Autumn Desk

When preparing months in advance for the Adirondack Museum’s Rustic Furniture Fair in Blue Mt. Lake NY, we decided we would honor the Adirondack Whitetail deer with a desk themed, “Adirondack Whitetail In Autumn”.  This is what we came up with.

It all started with Jillian’s carving.  This was a masterful work which included hand carved antlers--a tedious undertaking of glue ups and attachments with wooden dowels.  We held our collective breaths during the process.

Ryan designed the desk and then we tweaked the design so we were able to fit in some of the rustic elements more.  Looking like it has some pretty good potential.  We decided we weren't going to do birch bark.  It would still fit the Adirondack Rustic Furniture genre, though.  We would add cherry burls, live edge slabs, cedar flare legs, twig work and, of course, whitetail antler sheds.

The carved front legs depict goldenrod--an autumn favorite around here.  Not everyone is familiar with the wasp galls that are frequently seen on the stalks of the goldenrod.  The little wasps develop in the galls and will emerge in the spring.  Beech leaves drape along the side curves.  The dried beech leaves will cling to the branches well into winter.

Snowflakes might be in the air when the whitetail is in the rut.

So, lets make sure this whitetail has plenty to eat.  Lets put him in a forest with beech, oak, and acorns for some favorite nut munching.

The carved arching branch at the top of the desk even sports some buck rubs.

And, yes, that is a tiny snowflake carved into an antler shed.

All the parts and pieces seem to flow pretty well.  Not too much, not too little, its a go.....

Dang if that deer didn’t just bound across the top of the desk!

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The Making Of A One Of A Kind Adirondack Library

These are two of the completed sections of the Adirondack library.  The customer is a naturalist and wanted Jillian to carve specific botanicals, animals and insects.  

Jillian carving one of the owls that sits atop the “tree” pillar.  The theme is forest, of course.  The pillars are the trees which are topped by leaves of beech, maple and oak.  The idea being that if one looked up to the tree tops, there would be many different species of leaves intertwined to form the canopy.  Owls rest in the trees on either side of the south wall of the library.

Here is a close up of one of the owl’s talons.  Pretty amazing, huh?

It took Jillian nearly 18 months to complete all the carvings for this Adirondack forest inspired library.  

There was a lot of planning and fitting in the workshop.  Nothing could be oiled until Jillian was absolutely sure it was right.

She made the leaves so they would lap up onto the ceiling.  These cabinets are floor to ceiling.

This little flying squirrel peeking out of a tree knothole was applied to the “tree” and then blended in with Jillian’s magic.

Wait a minute, what’s this fellow doing?  Oh, he’s a merganser duckling leaping from a hole in the “tree”.  You can see him and his siblings in the next photo.

There they go, ready to follow their mama to the water. 

The trillium fretwork under the cabinet.  Look closely, Jillian made the negative spaces to be moths!

This leaf was going to be in the way of the upper cabinet door.  She solved the problem by making the leaf smaller--how did that happen?  Well, as you can see, a caterpillar chewed on it.

Our customer loves her library.  Each time she grabs a book, she notices some other small detail which Jillian left for her as a present. This customer gave us an opportunity to use our creativity, skill and talent.  Her gift to us, and our’s to her. 

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Our Rustic Expansion

Well, we’ve been talking about it for the past few years and now its happening--we are in the process of building a new, much larger, workshop.  Our old workshop began as the pump house for the Atlas missile located just up the small mountain behind our property.  Activated in 1942, it was abandoned in 1965 and the building sat idle for many years, the pumps and mechanicals long since removed.  We had the opportunity to purchase the property back in the late 80′s and did so, with the idea that someday, we might be able to live our dream.

The above photo shows the actual Atlas missile with the high peaks in the background.  The pump house is located about a half mile from the silo site. 

 We built additions onto the old pump house as we expanded.  The evolution reflected the joining together of our family to become L. Post Rustics.  Alas, it became evident that we had severely outgrown our space.   No room for additional tools, or the ability to work on several projects at once.  Time wasted moving tools around to get to other machinery, little area for setup, wait time for someone else to finish with tools, etc.  Cramped was an understatement.  It just wasn’t efficient, and it was downright frustrating.  If we were ever able to take on more work and continue expanding our business, we had to make the move to build.

Here we are a week ago, much more progress has since taken place on the building.  Normal Construction has been doing the work.  It won’t be looking fancy-- its a workshop.   We hope to have it finished off by autumn.  We’ve already slowly started to spill out into it, as it is connected to the old workshop.  

We have seen wood shops start off investing much money in their facilities before they have a customer base to support it--unfortunately, ending in financial disaster.  Our advice to new comers to the wood working business is to start small, take pride in quality and in the development of your own style, build your reputation, and gradually expand as demand for your product increases.  This plan has worked for us, and we can proudly say that every aspect of our business is fully owned by us.  We have some more exciting new plans for our business, and we will share them as they unfold.

We wish luck and prosperity to all who are following their dreams!  

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Camp Memories

Its been awhile since our last blog….but, it was a very busy year, and some things get delegated to the back burner

Designing furniture and built ins is the main focus of our business.  If the aesthetics aren’t there, no manner of execution of a poor design will ever be successful.  We know what we like and there is a feeling that we get when a piece is moving in the right direction.  Much like working on a painting—sensing when all of the elements are working well together and the final composition feels “right”.

The “right” feeling has to work for our customers and their space.  What we attempt to achieve is a level of comfort, familiarity, and artistic design. The design needs to fit the home, not compete with it.  

 As I think about the “comfort” aspect, my mind drifts back to the days of our family camp nestled in the mountains with a small brook enthusiastically flowing through the property.  Built by my French Canadian grandparents, it was meant to be a haven from the oppressive summer heat of the textile mills.  Parts of it were cobbled together out of salvaged wood from a catholic rectory (which, I’m sure, pleased my devoutly Catholic memere).  Every weekend of my childhood was spent swimming in Big Pond and the cool mountain air was drenched with the scent of balsam and sweet fern.   My older sister and I spent hours wandering around beaver dams and, on dares, could be found swimming in the mucky, leach infested water.  Afternoon activities revolved around the lake, but early mornings, before the black flies got truly vicious, were spent picking berries for any number of our Memere’s tantalizing desserts .  These were the highlight of the evening meal.  Chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with gravy and for special occasions, Canadian tortiere.  The camp was always brimming to full capacity with our family, friends and relatives.  Memere spent most of her time cooking, working on 1000 piece puzzles, playing solitaire and reading Prevention magazine. 

 On our trek to camp, my father would stop at William’s Meat Market at the foot of the mountain to pick up provisions to last the weekend.  My siblings chose to wait in the car while I relished the store experience. Stacks of wooden cheese containers lined the shelves and were filled with aging cheeses.  The air was pungent with the odor of cheese in full bloom. My father would sample Mr. William’s mouth watering delights making pleasured guttural sounds and their conversation became muffled as they worked their way to the counter to settle the purchases.  I would wander around the store looking at the decorative signs, food labels, gadgets, and utilitarian items which no camp could be without.  The visit with Mr. Williams completed, we would make our way up the steep mountain in the packed Country Squire, engine whining, until we kids would excitedly announce that our dirt road was in sight.

My mother accepted camp, although she was attracted to a finer material world.  The many willing hands there were a reprieve in the caregiving of her four young children.  Mom spent most of her time sunning on the shared beach in her Marilyn Monroe-esque way.  She was very stylish and quite pretty and she enjoyed the attention that came with this.  

   Our camp structure was probably 800 square feet, had knotty pine walls, a pot-bellied wood stove, well used 1920’s furniture along with some rustic pieces made by my dad.  There were old iron beds with creaky metal springs stacked high with wool blankets that smelled of moth balls. Linoleum, which crackled under foot, covered the kitchen and hallway floors.  Cast iron plaques on the walls with humorous quips and one-liners like “Don’t worry if you work hard and your rewards are few, remember, the mighty oak was once a nut like you” reflected my grandparents’ perspective on life.  Never lose your sense of humor. Their lives were hard, though, with many losses, but they treasured family and friends.  Sadly, my pepere died when I was six but Memere and all of her sisters (the great Aunts whose height never reached beyond 4’11) were ever present in our lives.  They seemed like the happiest people I ever knew.  And so, our camp was the happiest place I ever knew.  

  Our rustic family camp was a far cry from some of the lavish great camps of the Adirondacks.  I think, though, that no matter how spacious or exceptionally designed a camp is, its occupants want to feel a sense of connection to familiarity and past experiences.  Not so much a re-creation, but maybe a homage to a place where they felt the happiest in their lives. 

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Adirondack Rustic Furniture Inspiration

  Our ideas are inspired by nature. We search the forests and wooded areas by permission for unique oddities such as burls, twisted trees, roots and figured woods. We have a relationship with some of the local loggers who call us when they come across an uncommon piece of wood or rootbase that would otherwise be left in the forest after harvesting. These pieces are saved and mentally catalogued for future designs. We also purchase old buildings and barns slotted for razing. Though they have long lost their useful value, their antique wood and glass is prized by us. We use these natural and reclaimed materials in a harmonious compliment to furniture design contours that have been time tested for centuries. We like to achieve a balance and symmetry and you can actually hear us talk about the “Fibonnaci sequence” and the golden rule of thirds. We can be a little weird.. It can be a mind bending process and each design entails hours of forethought and drawings. Some rustic furniture makers do not use drawings, but we have found that drawing to scale saves material and, ultimately, time--if it feels “right” to us on paper, we will be happy with it when created.

Unlike the fine arts, aesthetics and utility are our requirements for our rustic art furniture. We can build a piece that is magnificent to look at, but if it doesnʼt fit the practical use, it has not been successful.

Our most recent acquisition is rescued logs from a lake in the Adirondacks . These have been cut into large slabs and slowly air dried. This wood was part of a harvest of old growth trees logged over 150 years ago during a period of logging denudation of the Adirondacks prior to the enactment of the "Forever Wild" bill in 1892. Tens of thousands of logs were moved on waterways and more than a few were lost along the way, sinking to the bottom of lakes and rivers. The cold water has preserved the wood, adding unique color tones and mineralization. They are extremely dense and will find new life and appreciation in the furniture we build. 

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Some of our favorite Adirondack Rustic furniture pieces by L. Post Rustics.