ABOUT SANGEET
Looking back, I see where the word “journeyman” comes from.
I was in junior high school shop class when I first fell in love with wood—the colors and grains of different woods joined, shaped, and polished.
A mix of teenage-jobs later, and a year and a half as a gravedigger in Monterey, at 20 years young I became a fireman. My schedule left 20 days off a month, so I was really able to get back into making beautiful things from wood.
An early gift was to learn from a Swiss master carver, Fritz Abplanap, who first came to America in the 1920s to carve a convent chapel with full-size saints and angels, all in black walnut. With him, I first experienced grace in the sweep of a gouge. I discovered stone carving and spent years in a realm of sensuous forms and smooth polished surfaces of alabaster and marble. I carved by hand, hammer on point, tooth chisel, rasps and sanding, and more sanding, polishing and more polishing.
Through a series of dramatic impulses and events in 1977 I was now called Sangeet and spent four years in an Indian ashram, on my path to enlightenment . . . but while meditating on that elusive carrot, I spent a good part of my time doing some wonderful woodworking under very simple hand tool conditions. There is nothing quite like getting teak and rosewood delivered by bullock cart and cutting dovetails by hand.
The ’80s brought several tsunamis of change that swept me through some carving jobs and body surfing in Hawaii, and onto the mainland US for more time in a spiritual community. From there, I took a woodworking job in Munich, Germany, but ultimately washed ashore just north of San Francisco, where I continue to roam to this day.
My time in the San Francisco Bay Area has blessed me with some fantastic projects and mind-bending challenges, working alongside amazing craftsmen. It is here that I fused my love of geometry with woodworking.
From my shop in Sebastopol, I keep looking for better ways to meet the challenges that come my way.
And I am always open to that next wild project! I look forward to hearing from you.
I was in junior high school shop class when I first fell in love with wood—the colors and grains of different woods joined, shaped, and polished.
A mix of teenage-jobs later, and a year and a half as a gravedigger in Monterey, at 20 years young I became a fireman. My schedule left 20 days off a month, so I was really able to get back into making beautiful things from wood.
An early gift was to learn from a Swiss master carver, Fritz Abplanap, who first came to America in the 1920s to carve a convent chapel with full-size saints and angels, all in black walnut. With him, I first experienced grace in the sweep of a gouge. I discovered stone carving and spent years in a realm of sensuous forms and smooth polished surfaces of alabaster and marble. I carved by hand, hammer on point, tooth chisel, rasps and sanding, and more sanding, polishing and more polishing.
Through a series of dramatic impulses and events in 1977 I was now called Sangeet and spent four years in an Indian ashram, on my path to enlightenment . . . but while meditating on that elusive carrot, I spent a good part of my time doing some wonderful woodworking under very simple hand tool conditions. There is nothing quite like getting teak and rosewood delivered by bullock cart and cutting dovetails by hand.
The ’80s brought several tsunamis of change that swept me through some carving jobs and body surfing in Hawaii, and onto the mainland US for more time in a spiritual community. From there, I took a woodworking job in Munich, Germany, but ultimately washed ashore just north of San Francisco, where I continue to roam to this day.
My time in the San Francisco Bay Area has blessed me with some fantastic projects and mind-bending challenges, working alongside amazing craftsmen. It is here that I fused my love of geometry with woodworking.
From my shop in Sebastopol, I keep looking for better ways to meet the challenges that come my way.
And I am always open to that next wild project! I look forward to hearing from you.
