Meet Paul Jasper of Copper Pig Woodworking in Framingham

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Jasper.

Paul, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My path toward woodworking art & design began in 2005 after buying my first house and becoming fast friends with my then ~80 yr. old neighbor, and first woodworking mentor, “Hal”. Hal was a woodworker with the boyish enthusiasm of a 20-something trapped in the body of an elderly man with a failing heart. Having no sons of his own, Hal could see my immediate interest in the craft and quickly took me under his wing, introducing me to the many fundamentals of woodworking. It was this serendipitous friendship that set me on my journey to become a more educated and capable artist and craftsman.

Over the next decade, I continued to refine my craft, both through self-study and classes at Boston’s prestigious furniture making schools including The Furniture Institute of Massachusetts and The North Bennett Street School. This is where I realized the passion inside myself for fine furniture and deliberate craftsmanship. Thereafter, I began apprenticing with a full-time maker and restorer, Freddy Roman, who brought my education to the next level and also integrated me into the regional fabric of professional furniture makers in New England.

More recently, I have again shifted my focus from making reproductions of historic woodworking pieces to that of the original design. While reproductions have many lessons to teach us from an execution perspective, I realized I had been depriving myself the opportunity of exploring my own creative voice as an artist. I try to design without concern for how it will be accomplished, only thinking about what I would like to convey to the audience with each piece, leaving the execution details to a later time.

This artistic exploration has largely manifested in the form of decorative sushi boards and charcuterie serving boards, which I collectively refer to as “functional art”. It brings me deep personal satisfaction to know the pieces I make are regularly used and bring even small moments of happiness to those who use and cherish them.

Has it been a smooth road?
The path to becoming a more serious and accomplished woodworker is fraught with difficulty and challenge. It takes years to get even a basic understanding of all the associated tools (both machines and hand-tools), joinery techniques, rules of wood movement, elements of eye-pleasing design, finishing techniques, etc. Where does one learn all of this information? And when exactly? And how does one afford all of the tools that are necessary for a full potential woodworking shop? If you told the 30 yr. old me the amount of time, effort, and resource the now 43 yr. old me has invested toward this craft, I almost certainly would not believe it.

But what keeps me coming back day after day, piece after piece is a deep and honest enjoyment of the process. I enjoy the artistic design process, which leads to engineering process, which segues into the many phases of execution; obtaining the lumber, milling it, cutting to dimension, joinery, ornamentation, smoothing, finishing, and then on to staging, photographing, marketing & sales. Ultimately leading back to people and relationships. I find that much of my work recently is done in collaboration with other artists which I find absolutely fascinating and rewarding, given working together pushes each of us out of our comfort zones and into new exciting spaces.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Copper Pig Woodworking story. Tell us more about the business.
I am Copper Pig Woodworking and am excited to produce fine functional art for the home. My work takes many forms from furniture to decorative sushi boards, boxes, cutting boards, and charcuterie boards. While those pieces may seem discrepant, what they have in common is the element of unique and original design.

Many of my pieces integrate decorative floral motifs, made of exotic wood species complemented with brass leaf and vining inlay. Other pieces feature vignettes of Japanese marquetry, so-called Yosegi Zaiku, stars that you find running through many of my pieces. I have also begun exploring more mixed-media, integrating metal and ceramic accents into largely wooden designs, to open up fresh and exciting design possibilities.

I pride myself on the high degree of refinement, effort, and creativity that I bring to each piece, and I am confident that my customers sense this, which is what makes owning hand-crafted items so special. I believe the maker community, especially that on Instagram, has come to think of me as a particularly creative and exacting voice in our wonderful community.

Having a background in fine period furniture, I have a strong execution foundation which allows me to realize the designs I conceptualize in my head without technical limitations. I am also very happy to help other members of the community learn from my experience, paying forward a piece of the generosity that was shown to me. Camaraderie over the competition.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I anticipate hand-made functional art to only increase in popularity in the near future as we collectively tire, as a society, of factory-made disposable products. I have seen, and continue to see, a trend in which people want to live a more meaningful, present, and deliberate life. This manifests in almost every way from how we spend our time, to what we eat, to the items we buy and live within our homes on a daily basis.

Having a decorative serving board on a dining room table for example, that you know was carefully conceptualized and crafted by another human, and is both functional and beautiful, can bring a small moment of joy during the day. These pieces are really gifts that continue to give and become more dear to us each time we see them and use them across the years. I anticipate I will continue to make these types of functional art for the foreseeable future pushing the creativity into new and exciting areas.

Pricing:

• Typical prices range from $100 – $500 depending on the piece

Contact Info:

• Website: www.copperpigwoodworking.com
• Phone: 617-645-7660
• Email: paul@copperpigwoodworking.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/copper_pig_fine_woodworking/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/copperpigwoodworking/

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