David Reisland

Wood

Bamboo Cabinet

"Ku"

"On Wings of Cranes

CONTACT INFORMATION

website - www.davidreisland.com
e-mail - dreisland@davidreisland.com
phone number and fax 808-328-1500
 

As a fifth generation woodworker, the need to be in the studio is in my bones. My passion for woodworking has driven a career of over forty years and continues to fuel my creative process.

I have been a homebuilder, finish carpenter, cabinet-maker and metal fabricator. But my journey to becoming the woodworker of my heritage has often been the road less traveled. I have been a long haul truck driver and a helicopter mechanic. I have flown old airplanes and helicopters. I have built and driven fast cars and faster motorcycles. All the while I was learning the thousands of things that have contributed to the synthesis of skills and insights that have found expression in my work as a furniture designer and builder.

Along the way I developed a passion for Asian art and architecture and the designs of the Arts and Crafts movement. George Nakashima, Sam Maloof, the Greene brothers and Frank Lloyd Wright, have also influenced me. I draw inspiration from the things that surround me both natural and manmade. I have used these influences to create not only furniture, but also metal sculpture.

These influences and the driving forces within me cause a continual striving for perfection. I seek to balance the aesthetic with the engineering to create an object of beauty never before seen. I combine the art with the craft so the spirit of the tree can live on as a piece of fine furniture enriching the lives of the people for whom it was created. I have followed a dream and it has brought me here, to the Big Island of Hawaii. Now I do the work I love.

My wife works with me in the studio, my son surfs and we swim with the turtles. Every day I get to work with great “big boy tools” and choose the project that I will create. I work primarily in Koa and Mango, woods that grow here and have so much life in their colors and patterns that I am overwhelmed with their beauty. I follow the wood; it shows the way. I honor it and I try to find its ultimate use. Koa was the wood of the Ali’i (Hawaiian Royalty); it should be respected. I do my best.

Bombay Dresser