Why do I call myself Mattole Craftsman? I don't claim to be the only, or best, or fastest, or most precise or any of that. I learned my craft in the Mattole Valley, Petrolia to be more precise. The Mattole valley is long and windy and provides homes to many talented craftsmen, most you will probably never hear about. These craftsmen reside deep in the remote stretches of this beautiful land surrounding the Mattole River. From Petrolia to Honeydew to Ettersburg and further to Whitethorn and beginning in the Sanctuary Forest. The Mattole River travels through the most pristine, untouched, rural land in all of California. You can be sure to find many fine craftsmen in these parts, living self sufficient lifestyles and only improving on their impact on this precious land.
I call myself Mattole Craftsman because my journey began here and continues to take me on adventures. Everyday it is something new and exciting, sometimes it seems like a project will never end and then suddenly it is as if you just reached the summit of a grand mountain and over the edge is an endless view of possibilities waiting below you. It is downhill at this point, with the wind at your back, all one must do is make careful decisions and the adventure continues in a positive direction.
I worked in the printing industry before making shavings and saw dust. A stripper was my title. My job was to create the film that would be sent off to press to be burned onto plates. It was a day spent mostly hunched over a light table or under an exposure lamp positioned over a vacuum table. It was precise work using a loupe to register film separations, cutting windows with an exacto knife into rubilith, and matching colors by exposing the proper screen percentage on either the cyan, yellow, magenta or black film negatives. It wasn't long after I worked in the industry that computers started to be used. First it was digital cameras, then it was digital layout sent directly to film. There were a lot of problems in the beginning and soon all that we strippers were doing was positioning the digitally created pages onto large sheets of mylar. No longer were we using our artistic talents to create printed work. It came to the point were we either learned how to use a computer or find another profession.
I learned how to use a computer and I hated it. My days were spent sitting in an arm chair clicking a mouse all day waiting for the computers to crunch the complicated data. A lot of the time was spent trying to figure out why things were not working correctly. My arm started to always get numb and I started gaining weight and feeling shitty all the time. All the jobs that came in were wanted to be completed yesterday and I was working 10 to 12 hours a day. I rarely went outside and I was eating fast food every day, not a healthy lifestyle.
My computer knowledge got me a job in Eureka, California so we packed up and moved from our hometown where my wife and I grew up, we were young and ready for a change. Humboldt county was a huge change from our Pleasant Grove, Utah (sheltered) upbringing. We were 23 and ready for the challenge. I worked for 3 months for Eureka Printing struggling on PC's and not having our own calibrator to check our film. It was an hour and a half commute over a windy road from Petrolia.
My aunt was dating an architect/builder Jim Groeling and he had an opening on a job building a cabin in Petrolia. I took it and have never looked back. The only building experience I had before this was building skateboard ramps as a teenager. That first summer in Petrolia was unforgettable! I will always cherish the opportunities presented to me by Jim Groeling, the greatest craftsman architect alive. From the beginning I learned the value of recycling lumber, especially redwood. He turned me on to many great architects and builders like the Greene brother, Frank Lloyd Wright, Maybeck, Krenov, Maloof and many more. I spent many evenings browsing his book collection.
