As for what he is bringing to Market Hill, Paul says he spent six weeks on the road with trips to Dallas, Atlanta, Vegas and Tucson. In Tucson, he bought an entire lot of 52 slices of black petrified wood. He decided to make small tables with them, pairing the petrified wood with natural wood. He engineered a prototype but didn’t like it. He says they are reworking the design at the shop.
He tells us of large, spear-pointed crystals he also found. “From South America. Brazil. Phenomenal crystals on these metal bases that were ugly and unworthy of the crystals.” He describes his plan to remount them. With that, he says, “let’s go to the shop, so you can see them.” It’s just a few minutes’ drive to the woodshop where the shop cat, Paloma, greets us outside. We arrive to the sound of saws and smell of sawdust. In every corner of the shop, there is industry, purpose and focus with multiple projects happening all at once. This is where the magic happens.
Paul leads us to the crystals in the metal bases. It appears he bought the whole lot of them. There are rows upon rows of quartz crystals of all sizes on two long tables. His top welder and metal worker is in the act of hand-fitting each individual component to create new bases worthy of the crystals. “Every piece has to be hand fit,” Paul says.
We walk through the shop and see additional projects underway, including Vincent Peach’s doors, 12 of them, some drying, some in the process of being painted “Cathedral Stone,” a pretty blueish gray.
There’s a boulder atop Lucite. He calls it the “Flintstone table.” When asked where the rock comes from, he says, “northwest Arkansas” … and what kind of rock it is, “the kind that comes out of the side of a mountain,” he laughs. He tells us he was on his way to look at a deer camp when he saw the boulders and bought two truckloads of them.
Another piece Paul is proud to show us is an ottoman made of wood. “I was in the Apple Store, and I saw an ottoman I liked, and I thought I could make one better than that.” Like the inspiration piece, his version is essentially a wooden box with a slight indention on the seat and open in the middle. Inside, he stuffs a black sheep’s wool poof. “It’s for people without a lot of room. You pull it out, and now you have two seats instead of one,” he says.
For Paul, inspiration can come from anywhere. “I don’t think any artist came up with their own original idea. It was inspired by something. Creativity happens when you have collaboration and outside influences.”
And yet many of the pieces in the shop, Paul comes up with on the spot, and this is where the real magic happens. An example of this is a large clamshell from China, which Paul says he’s had for 12 years, and now has an idea for it. The clamshell, weighing some 300 pounds, is rolled out on a dolly. His son, Jake, and right-hand man Salvador lift it to its resting place atop two vertical slabs of reef from Indonesia. Paul stands back as the men adjust the piece to the precise angle, the proper form.
