A birch tree figure festooned with Christmas lights guards the approach to the house Philip Daniels shares with his partner, Francesca Fantacci. Though they moved to the Bristol area only a month ago from Wakefield, Quebec, they have settled right in; they look like they’ve been living there for years.
During a tour of his backyard studio and storage setup, Daniels . . .
motioned toward a pile of coloured logs. “This is Bernadette – a 35 foot dragon.” The legs are long enough to walk under, and he has used it to support a hammock in the past. “I was hoping to have it set up by now,” he lamented. The dragon has been featured at community events in the past. Though Daniels is a self-proclaimed recluse, he seems willing to share his art with enthusiasm. There is genuine passion in his work and expression.
Daniels makes handcrafted artistic furniture, and there is already an impressive pile of sawdust next to his shed. “I have been addicted to the smell of sawdust since the age of five,” he explained. “I need to do this every day.”
Daniels is clearly making use of his workshop. And his work is distinctive. Even the cutting boards he sells on his Etsy store are imbued with a quirky, playful style. He makes functional pieces, but some of his work is clearly meant to play with the material, and this is where he shows off his precision and control over the wood. His guitar tables, which cover all sorts of shapes and brands of guitars, are a good example of his level of precision. Daniels has made eleven guitar tables in total, of all shapes and sizes. Though they are all different from each other, they all look like a real guitar sat in the sun for too long. The neck is folded over the edge, as if melting like a plastic spoon. “No guitars were harmed in the making of this table” he said reassuringly, then added “well, except for the neck.”
Daniels incorporates the natural shapes of trees into many of his practical pieces. He forages for wood that will fulfill a specific function or purpose, and then he yields to the condition or direction of the wood. When asked about one of his bowls, he acknowledged “it isn’t perfect, in terms of the shape, but I let the wood tell me what it wants to do. I formed it the way the wood was meant to be shaped.”
He uses other found objects to enhance his artistic creations, and he’s clearly having quite a lot of fun with his creative process. “That’s an alien,” he said out of the humanoid birch tree figure above his driveway. “And that’s a fungus,” he announced. “His crown is a huge tree fungus, because it was the right shape to make his head.”
Daniels is having fun making art, and he’s making his art fun. A lot of his work is whimsical and humorous – there is a spark of defiance in his attitude. Daniels laughs a lot, and that openness and lack of pretense is reflected in his art.
That said, Daniels clearly has skills. He can make wood do anything: “I figured out how to bend cedar logs,” he said, excitedly gesturing toward a fence with beautiful long, curved pieces of thick cedar logs. “They really don’t want to bend like that, and it took some trial and error, but I figured it out. I did it.”
Daniels is a natural teacher, generous with his willingness to share knowledge. Following a career as a furniture maker and high-end cabinet maker, Daniels has a fluency and ease with wood, and his excitement is contagious. He has expressed a willingness to teach woodworking to students who are interested in learning. And he will make custom artwork and furniture for people who have the inspiration or desire, but lack the skills.
That said, Daniels also knows his limitations. “I don’t make violins,” he laughed, after being asked if he had ever tried making one. “Instruments require wood that is evaluated for the tone it produces – and some people can hear a good violin when it’s still a block of wood. I’ll stick to making furniture. And dragons,” he laughed.
Daniels appreciates, and is always looking for beautiful and interesting pieces of wood. Large tree fungi. Burls. “I really need to find someone with a cedar forest,” he mused. Perhaps the community will reach out and help him find one. He sells his pieces under the name “Hart Furniture” which stands for “Handcrafted Artistic Furniture.”
