Furniture show made possible by L.A. storm

LOS ANGELES Furniture designer Harold Greene, 63, grew up making toys out of reclaimed scraps of wood in his California neighbourhood. So when a windstorm pummeled Los Angeles County in 2011, destroying thousands of trees, he and nine other members of the L.A.-based Box Collective, a group of environmentally conscious furniture makers and designers, did what came naturally. They set about collecting wood from the fallen trees to make furniture and art.

Their efforts, including Greene’s poolside-perfect, streamlined Chaise Lounge, have been gathered in the Windfall exhibit at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. The show runs until Sept. 4 and features an array of works, from benches and end tables to bowls.

“This exhibit is important because it’s dedicated to sustainable materials and educating the public about what is possible with trees growing in front of their place, in their own front yard,” said Greene, who has designed and built furniture full time since 1979.

The wood for Greene’s Chaise Lounge — a beige cedar that he cut into thin strips, which he laminated and layered on a curved form — came from trees destroyed at Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

For beginners wanting to make furniture out of sustainable wood, Greene suggests finding a class taught by furniture makers.

If there’s a fallen tree you want to use, you have to mill it. Milling is the process of cutting wood into thicknesses of different dimensions, making it easier to work with.

And you can’t rush it. The wood has to dry one year for every inch of thickness that you cut, Greene said. Once it’s dry, test the moisture level. Wood that isn’t dry enough will shrink and move after you make something with it.

Furniture designer R.H. Lee, 38, who teaches woodworking and design at California State University, Long Beach, said her students work with slabs milled in previous years.

Her dark brown End Tables, made with San Francisco-based J.D. Sassaman, incorporate paulownia wood from the arboretum as well as black walnut and claro walnut. They have a unique twist: granite spires pounded into the wood.

The tables were inspired by a backpacking trip the pair took through the Sierra Nevada mountains, through snowy granite peaks, wind-damaged trees and the Devils Postpile National Monument.

“The story that a fallen tree tells is much more interesting and varied than the industrially harvested and milled boards you have access to at a lumber yard,” Lee said.