We recently connected with Chris and Rachel Bass and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris and Rachel, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

The process of learning one’s craft is ongoing and ever-changing. For us, it started with Chris’ desire to be his boss. He desired the autonomy that comes with entrepreneurship. Taking this risk offered him the opportunity to learn rough woodworking in an outdoor setting. Over the years we collected second hand tools and started to play off what he was learning. We read books, watched videos, and learned through workshop exploration. Looking back to where we are now and where we started there is a clear difference. That difference only came from time spent practicing and being willing to make mistakes. Putting pieces you have taught yourself to make and spent hours perfecting out into the world and asking people to buy it can feel perilous. That fear is something that we grapple with continuing to learn and grow. It almost stopped us from progressing numerous times. The passion at working with different wood and highlighting it with new processes is what we have found essential to pushing through fear and showing up each day in the woodshop.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We are a husband and wife team, this is Rachel telling our story. Chris has been a carpenter for 13+ years building decks, arbors, and general outdoor construction. Around 6 years ago he started working in fine carpentry and we haven’t looked back since. We still have the first piece we ever built together and it is incredible to see the growth next to the pieces we are making now. We guide our lives around leading a quiet life and working with our hands. We have spent countless hours in the shop doing that side by side. The Mountain Seed was started with a desire to create with and celebrate the beauty of natural wood. While our skills have developed that desire is the same.

With the title of woodworkers, we also hold true to being “Jacks of all trades.” We dabble in paper products, wall art, and garden supplies amongst other things. Our woodworking has turned into an all-encompassing way to express our way of living. It is an outlet for living in the garden, warming homes with natural accents, encouraging one another with the written word, and expressing our faith. These parts of our business are newer to our brand and ever-growing. There are a lot of thrilling ideas brewing in our brains.

What we love doing though is wood-forward furniture and home decor pieces. Sourcing wood locally, in a lot of cases milling and drying it out ourselves and celebrating the character of the wood. There are many times that we do not know what piece we will be creating until we start working with the wood and allowing it to guide what suits its unique form best. This is what allows our creations to really shine, the wood is the center of what we make. This part of our business will never change. It is foundational.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Something that people who are “non-creative” (we will come back to this air quote) struggle to understand in the creative journey is the depth at which the travel enriches our souls. This pursuit isn’t always based on financially logical ideas, clear-cut paths, accessible avenues to retirement, or even understandable career goals. It can lead to financial success, a clear understanding of where to go, early retirement, and achieving goals. Creative lives have all the potential to do these things. It isn’t, in our case, the focus though.

The focus is based on something much deeper in our souls. It is necessary to do this craft to feel whole and grounded in life. Our family needs these woodshop days to function healthily and better pursue early retirement and financial success. We will do with less material right now in order to live fuller emotional and spiritual lives. Also, we don’t plan to retire, we love it too much to ever fully stop.

Back to my “non-creative” air quotes. I would challenge those who classify themselves this way. We believe for many reasons the creative spirit is within us all, just untapped or unearthed. We suggest a year of dabble and just see if anything sparks a creative fire. Take a pottery class, go to a poetry reading, draw blueprints for no real reason, grab colored pencils and a coloring book, the possibilities are endless. Once that spark is lit the fire will be unstoppable and change your life. Even if not monetarily, spiritually, and emotionally. We would argue that is more important that the first anyways.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience is HUGE in owning your own business, especially from a creative standpoint. People will subjectively tell you if you are doing valuable work or not. It is easy to get caught up in only feeling satisfied with your work if people are praising it constantly. There has to be resilience to feel ready to continue in business even in an off month or year.

One specific time of resilience was right after Chris’ brain surgery. It was a life-changing surgery that came with major brain/spine kind of risks. The cost of not doing the surgery was the loss of limb functionality in both arms and legs. That cost outweighed the risks of going forward with surgery. We knew it would be hard to come back to woodworking after the surgery as Chris is the driving force in the workshop. No amount of preparation would have gotten us ready for how long and how grueling recovery would be.

Complications on top of complications happened and when it was finally time to stand in the workshop again we were shocked. Shocked by the amount of non-saw dust, dust that had formed on our tools. Shocked by the lack of muscular ability left. Shocked by the shortage of creative ideas. It was a time that easily could have stopped us in our tracks and it would have been understandable, we were facing literal brain surgery!

We came together. I (Rachel) cut where Chris could not, carried the lumber he found, he took over sanding for a while and we made simple pieces. As a team, we just started small and used the time to research more in our craft and discovered new opportunities. It was a beautiful way to heal from the trauma of brain surgery and progress in The Mountain Seed.     

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.themountainseed.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themountainseed/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themountainseed