PHOTO CREDITS (FROM TOP): CARLOS IBARRA/ANDREW BRANT / TODD SORENSON
Each class has 23 students and the average age range is 30–40, though students have been as young as 18 and as old as 80. In this year’s class, 17 are first-year students and six are second-year students/teaching aides. They hail from all over the country as well as Austria, Denmark, England, Australia, South Africa, and Korea. Though the school is now 38 years old and has changed both college affiliations and names, almost everything else about the two-semester woodworking program has stayed the same. The school is housed in the original location, built to Krenov’s specifications, with 23 workbenches. At the beginning of the first semester, new students spend six weeks learning joinery before starting on their first project, which has four parameters: It must be small, sweet, simple, and made of solid wood. Most students make a cabinet—a tradition instilled by Krenov, a fine cabinetmaker— but there’s no limit to what can be created. Most recently, one student made a flower press; another a backgammon board. Students might tinker with a variety of ideas, building models in cardboard, or first choose the wood and design the final product based around it, the wood itself setting the parameters. The entire first semester is spent on this project, which is presented at the midwinter show. “Woodworking is so hands-on, direct, and specific. Everything you do has an immediate result, for good or bad,” says Mays. “Our students obsess over these projects for a long time, and the end result is something beautiful.” Krenov is an applied learning environment—there is very little book learning—and most classes are discussions rather than lec-
tures. The program isn’t broken up into individual courses. Instead, students focus on whatever they’re working on for the entire day, asking questions and seeking guidance as needed. “In modern life, it’s unusual to be fully engaged in something, so this time is like a gift for our students,” says Mays. “We have the opposite problem of almost every other class—we can’t get our students to go home at the end of the day!” The remote location in Fort Bragg is a benefit to the school’s full-immersion model. Students don’t go to museums or galleries or take field trips to cultural institutions, and they’re far from a major city with its commensurate distractions. Shop manager Todd Sorenson was also one of James Krenov’s final students in 2002. He has stayed close to the school ever since, working locally as a cabinetmaker and occasional teacher at The Krenov School before taking over the shop’s operations in 2016. Sorenson acquires wood from many sources. Certain woods that they need in bulk are purchased from lumber mills. He also buys excess lumber from nearby contractors and storm-fall wood milled by a local. “Wood is inherently sustainable because it regrows, but the best option is American hardwood,” he explains. “If it comes from the US, it was most likely sustainably harvested.” The school also occasionally gets specialty woods like madrone and tan oak from the Redwood Forest Foundation. From a forester’s point of view, these are the “weeds” of the hardwood forest— difficult to mill and tricky to dry— but they have beautiful grain and
texture. “The undesirable wood from their point of view is the desirable wood for us,” explains Mays. Locals are also in the habit of dropping off strange and special wood they think the school can use, a kind of donation-based upcycling that speaks to the mindset of Mendocino County culture. “Students come here to immerse themselves in a year of woodworking adventure. They may go back to their old careers, but their time here will be regenerative,” says Sorenson. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Archer is a Mendocino native and a promoter of local culture. She and her husband run Carson and Bees in Ukiah.
FLOWER PRESS NO. 2 Crafted by Grace Zarah, in cherry and maple From the maker: "Growing up in Chicago, I loved the large wooden flower press kept in our family’s living room. Recently married and living in California now, I have found myself missing this object from my childhood home. However, my siblings decided I couldn’t simply take the beloved family press with me west. So, I was inspired to make my own. Playful in its nature and built with traditional joinery, my flower press is designed to last for generations to come."
S U M M E R 2020
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