MYRTLEWOOD MEMOIRS

An artist pens an ode to the mighty Oregon myrtle in this memoir.

The Oregon myrtle is a hardwood with remarkable properties and applications. Also known as the California bay laurel, the tree is found up and down the Pacific shoreline, particularly in the dense forests spanning Oregon’s Coast Range and the Klamath Mountains. “The myrtlewood range of Southwestern Oregon, with its artists, craftsmen, and history-heritage, may not exist on any national treasure list, but is one of the rarest and most beautiful woods of the world,” writes Woodall in his introduction. In particular, the wood of the Oregon myrtle has been much sought-after by woodworkers since the mid-1800s due to its easy workability and beautiful grain. The author began tackling myrtle as a young man in the 1970s—indeed, the preponderance of myrtlewood is what brought him to the woodworking community around Coos Bay in the first place. In this memoir, Woodall describes both the history of myrtlewood in the Coos Bay region and his own adventures in carving with the wood—a passion that ultimately brought him international renown as a sculptor. The author writes about the myrtlewood with obsessive lyricism, as here where he describes the first hunk he cut from a felled trunk in Charlestown, Oregon: “A straw-colored field merged into yellows, then bands of black, intoned with silver grays, and finally, the indented center peppered with white speck that created a honeycomb effect. In a moment of amazement, I recognized a solitary human-like figure outlined in the grain pattern.” These pages open up a world that few outside Southwest Oregon have probably thought much about, and Woodall’s vivid descriptions of both the natural landscape and the woodworking community will capture the audience’s attention. The book’s structure is anecdotal, without much momentum to carry readers from one chapter to the next, but the story is hardly the point. Instead, the author manages to capture the meditative tranquility that an artist might find from slowly shaping a hunk of myrtlewood.

An unexpectedly immersive, rich blend of art and nature writing.