Hasta La Ideas

I’ve seen lots of craftspersons who can join wood to wood. But I haven’t seen many who can join wood to stone, with this kind of precision:

That’s the Wabi-Sabi bed, by furniture designer Ethan Stebbins. The wood is White Ash, and the stone is granite, which Stebbins harvested from coastal Maine, where he’s based.

Stebbins’ Dovetail Bench employs the same granite, and Douglas Fir:

And his Dovetail Stool uses granite and charred Cedar.

Stebbins describes his process:

“My work mainly relies on paying close attention to the organic matter’s properties. One must appreciate the individual characteristics of a certain wood kind or a certain type of stone before shaping them and joining the two together.”

“There is a rather special moment when you carve, a quiet, flashing moment when the natural character of the stone reveals itself. This moment is everything.”

Stebbins is represented by New York gallery Les Ateliers Courbet.

All images by Joseph Kramm.