Matthew Werner

My connections to the natural world are rooted in my childhood, when my family spent summers on the Delaware River, and I was free to roam field and forest. An internship with the Smithsonian during my college years paid me a stipend to walk in the Maryland woods with a notebook and pencil and observe ant communities. That led to graduate studies in entomology and soil ecology, and eventually I came to Santa Cruz, California with a Ph.D. to do research in organic farming.

During my academic career, I was always seeking creative projects, mostly through music and writing. But when my partner Michele and I purchased an old house in Santa Cruz in the mid-1990′s and began contemplating the work we wanted to do on it, the idea of working with wood took hold. I showed some early efforts to a friend, who suggested I read Jim Krenov’s books. His writings were such an inspiration that I spent a year studying Fine Woodworking with Mr. Krenov in Fort Bragg, California, and this work has been my full-time occupation ever since.

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