The Last Five Percent
After long experience, I've learned that the last five percent of nearly any project requires ninety-five percent of the effort.
I try to put that last ninety-five into every piece I make.
Early Days
​A photo of Lon chopping firewood outside the two-room cabin where he, his brother, and father mined for gold in rural northern California.
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No electricity, no plumbing, no phone, no worries.
Here to There
​When not chopping wood, carrying water, mining, or fishing, Lon attended this one room schoolhouse.
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Between there and his current home and studio in Louisville, Kentucky, Lon has been (in no particular order) a sailor, electronics technician, university instructor, cabinet maker, machinist, industrial designer, and artist.
It's a Dirty Job
​Cutting, grinding, sanding, polishing, drilling, hammering - gotta love it.
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Lon enjoys working with a wide variety of materials. His experience from high-tech (several years at The University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) to extreme low-tech (whacking away on chunks of stone and wood) lends Lon's pieces a unique and distinctive style.
"I've worked on everything from particle accelerators to backpacks for The North Face and signs for The Gap. The work I do now is the culmination of that experience. I'm still trying to get better at it."
Here he is grinding and shaping one of his stone vanities.