Artists of the Methow Valley and beyond

Surrounded by wood, life is good.
Surrounded by wood, life is good.

Don McIvor

McIvor Woodworks

  • 509.997.9456
  • puma[at]methownet.com
  • Website
129 Old Twisp Hwy
Twisp, WA 98856

Mediums:

  • Film
  • Music
  • Photography
  • Woodworking
  • Writer

About The Artist

I have been working with wood professionally and out of passionate interest for more than 25 years. I have crafted furniture and cabinets, and worked with a home builder and architectural consultant to restore log and post-and-beam homes. I look back on those experiences and think about the years of effort I put into making wood straight and flat, and suspect that is one reason the lathe—which emphasizes round and flowing lines—offers such a creative outlet.

Although I have studied photography, writing, and woodworking either in college or under the tutelage of master craftsmen, my degrees are in science (archeology, environmental sciences, wildlife ecology). A fascination with the workings of the natural world and a desire to be outside drew me along that course. As professional advancement pulled me out of the field and chained me to a computer or thrust me into quagmires of pointless meetings, I drew inexorably towards art, which promised to put me back in contact with the outdoors. Possibly as a homeless person, but still, the allure is there.

I grew up in Virginia, except for a four-year stint in Australia. Those four years also led me to New Zealand and overland across Asia from Katmandu to Istanbul, and suffused me with a wanderlust I have never been able to completely shake. I moved to the West in 1991 and have lived in Utah, Nevada, and now make my home in the Methow Valley with my wife, Mary, and a small menagerie of spoiled pets.