We were lucky to catch up with Noah Witenstein recently and have shared our conversation below.

Noah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Thanks for making the time! I try to build depth into all my work, but the first to come to mind are two projects – linked through special meaning, together marking a shift in the depth of my own journey; The Contemplation Bench and The Table of Connection.

“We wait. We sit. We watch. Searching for beauty within the turmoil. For meaning within the movement, the moments and the depth. Searching for some sense of stability amidst the chaos…”

November 4th, 2020 was the day my mom suffered her stroke, which far overshadowed the other things going on in the world at large in that moment; Pandemic, Biden-Trump Election (literally that day), Climate Change, etc.  That was the day I started working on what would eventually become the Contemplation Beach. 

Only in my shop could I let myself feel my own emotions. Here I could process what I held inside. Having something to direct my attention and focus my intention, allowed me room to begin. The material guided my vision of what this piece would ultimately become.  Starting without any end in mind, just attention to the material and what it was going to need to make it structurally sound. Working on what needed it because it was something I could do; giving me a sense of purpose.  Weak spots patched. Cracks and voids reinforced. Looking patiently for the details that spoke to each other. Little by little, the blend of structural and aesthetic start to weave in my mind and on my bench. The energy of the vision forming inside and that in the material slowly beginning to recognize each other and communicate. 

Ah the magic of art. Allowing myself to imagine and create let me recover ever so slightly. Striving to bring a sort of balance to the wood and be in balance with the materials and process was also my way of finding my own balance.  The journey, not the destination right? 

Trusting in the beauty that lies inside the roughness of the wood reminded me to find appreciation for what I could. Even in the darkest times to look beneath the surface. Trusting myself to be in balance with the material and the process let me look into my own raw material and feel trust in the process there as well.  There is a dance between control and letting go that is a dynamic aspect of balance, nature and life. This is represented in the characteristics of my materials. All of that energy I was looking to navigate and process worked its way into what would become the Contemplation Bench: A place where you can come and sit and think about all the things there are to think of and maybe, just maybe come away with a fresh perspective.

“We Sit. We wait. We Watch. We look for beauty in the midst of it all. It is there…It is here.  The beauty in the turmoil, the balance in the chaos. The answers live not in places we haven’t yet discovered, but rather they exist in plain sight, in the places we’ve forgotten how to see.”

The Table of Connection:

Fast forward 6 months, recovery well underway, my folks told me they wanted a table inspired by the Contemplation Bench.  Live edge on one side, narrow long and a certain height. I had the chance to make something that pulled together my love, care and gratitude for my parents. Weaving in connection wherever I found inspiration. Something that pulled together all the meaning I could envision along the way. Something that pulled together the best that’s within me, my skillset, spirit and imagination.

My dad came with me to source the wood slab I’d use for this project, involving him in the project, here at the very beginning.  I have some hand tools of my mom’s father who died when I was young. Taking the time to hone the blades, mindful that he worked these very same pieces of steel so many years ago before, training his mind in focused attention on the same edge. I feel like I can touch his spirit when I bring his tools in hand to a project. Taking a few passes to get the first promise of beauty in the grain that lies beneath the rough surface.

We lost my mom’s sister that year and I wanted this table to hold her energy as well.  The love and sadness at her loss. The happiness in her memory and her peace.  Later, during the sanding process my daughter came in and took a few smoothing passes also, bridging the connection through time. Four generations, many branches. Many roots and connections.

Early on in the build, before I had the clear picture down in my head. I got a call from my mom. She asked what I was doing and I told her I was talking to her wood. She got a kick out of that and asked me what I was talking about. I told her that I was just starting to learn the piece of wood. I’d just taken enough passes with her dad’s hand plane to get to smooth clear wood and I was running my hand over it. Feeling with my fingers what my eyes couldn’t see, letting it tell me where the grain moved and shifted. Where were there weak spots to strengthen and reinforce and where were the ones to celebrate and accentuate? Feeling the wood while also thinking about it’s life as a tree, plugged into the ground, sharing networks that stored carbon, breathed oxygen and took care of neighbors and passing wisdom to future generations; reaching up in a canopy that provided shade and food for a whole creature network of birds, insects and other animals.  

There are also the physical connections, how it’s put together. In traditional woodworking this is done primarily with joinery. The mortise and tenon, one known for its strength, is employed where the stretcher rides under the top slab and connects with the legs to create the structural base of the table.  Bowties and dutchman’s joints used as structurally to reinforce cracks and as aesthetic elements. This table has 109 of these inlays.  On the table top, shelf and legs I incorporated inlays created from previous artwork to represent my own journey.  Cracks on the underside are reinforced with special wood given to me by friends of my parents. I’d saved this wood  for years without ever having a project that called for them. This one did.  Incorporating these elements in both sides of the table top created patterns that connect throughout the design.

Just as this table holds my aunt’s energy, my grandfather’s energy, my mom and dad’s energy, along with my energy and that of my wife and daughter.  I wanted this table to honor the energy of the tree’s life.  I let this wood talk to me, telling me it’s story through the movement in the grain.  Learning new secrets as I worked more and more into the wood, seeing the dance and poetry.  

Just as working with the wood, led me to deepen my love and understanding of the tree, so to has my love of the tree led me to deepen my understanding and love of life itself, of the wonder of nature, of the connection and oneness of all life on this planet…The health of home and heart. The Table of Connection.

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.

Of course. My name is Noah Witenstein. I’m an artist, a philosopher and a father living in Long Beach, Ca.  When my daughter was born, I initially doubled down on career to climb the ladder. I blinked and 10 years flashed past with me feeling little purpose in my work. One day I realized I wasn’t modeling what I hoped to with the example of my life.  With the incredible love and support of my wife, I left the professional path. I discovered an affinity for wood and design, kind of falling into my expression of art, which I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy for the past several years.

My body of work describes a path of self discovery through ecological consciousness, science and spirituality.  Looking deeply into wood to see the tree, and deeply through the tree to see the connected whole. Seeing the connected whole to better understand myself. Understanding myself more deeply so I can cultivate my own sense of higher purpose and articulating this vision with all the tools available to me. 

Wood becomes a metaphor for finding the beauty that lies inside, for the potential that exists.  It is a reminder that we are connected to our natural world and its intricate balance.  My work, words and other forms of expression are my means to share this connected world through my eyes, to lay bare my perspective, the vision in my artist’s mind.

I come from a philosophical approach to Art that involves an intimate understanding of deep and broad concepts, from philosophy and science to spirituality and connection with the universe.  As such, it involves a multidisciplinary approach to exploring knowledge and continuous reinvigoration of spirited energy, as tapped into when unfolding and venturing into some new corner of the origami of understanding.

I can’t say that I’ve cracked the code of how to have no impact while also having an impact. But I try to be as conscious and intentional as possible with my choices and how I approach process, material and final product, using only urban wood and bio-based eco-resins. Is this a perfect solution? No. But I take time to research the best options available, and support companies that are working constantly to innovate with the right intentions and I evolve my own process over time to find balance, because we’re living in a time that’s just too damn important to pretend otherwise.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I don’t just think about the wood as a material and what I want to make out of it. I think as well about life; the issues of the world and our times. I think about my family, my daughter and the direction of the world she’s growing into; my wife, of her strength, love and support. About the conscious choices we make to prioritize our connections and intentions, how we build this into our family culture. I think about the impacts of our endeavors on the planet, on ourselves as a species, about the byproducts of these endeavors and the weight of their wake on our physical, mental and emotional health. I think a lot about the purpose of my spirit having this human experience. Working with wood becomes a moving meditation through which I process these many different layers of care, concern and consequence.

I am building a concept I call “the artist’s mind” that employs a deep understanding of materials, tools, and process, mixing these with creativity, to reimagine how they can work together. The Artist’s Mind is accessible to every one of us. I feel that the ability to develop, encourage and support the Artist’s Mind will be the single most important factor in addressing the circumstances we find in the world today and in building a healthy future for tomorrow. 

We have the opportunity, in this moment of consequence, to raise our understanding of the world and our role in the membership of life. To elevate an understanding of what is possible; to imagine the impossible in order to bring it into the world of potential; to introduce it into the collective imagination, whispering this vision out into the world; suggesting a new current of thought into the conversation.

I imagine today a world that looks towards tomorrow, that embraces a focused symbiosis between the world we live in and the world we live on. Intrinsically connected in our pursuits, our actions, our intentions and our byproducts. Participating responsibly in the full stream of it all – The closed loop of interconnection and interdependence. 

I imagine that when we see the living world around us, once again, as the source of knowledge, secrets lay waiting to be unlocked that will astound, providing incredible new opportunities for purpose, passion and development along a very different yardstick of success.

I imagine that if we look deeply into the dynamic balance between all the complex networks of ecosystems and learn to see how to put together the pieces into a connective whole; when we acknowledge that instead of separate and entitled we are in fact, a part of the world around us, ailing as it ails; we will realize too that we are able to heal it, if we are able to heal ourselves.

I imagine that as we do learn to look more deeply into the endless connections around us we’ll discover inspiration everywhere we look.  When we learn to model our own designs and sense of stewardship around the organizing principles of interconnection we will begin to see fewer symptoms of imbalance with all of life around us.

I imagine how this might impact how we connect with ourselves, others and the world around us. I imagine how this shapes a sense of meaning and connection and our understanding of health and balance. Because the connection is there regardless of whether we choose, consciously, to be stewards of balance through our potential, or contribute to imbalance with the weight of our own ignorance.

As a father, I recognize this as a time of incredible significance. This is Our Moment of Consequence and I feel a responsibility to my daughter, to our children, to the Generation of Our Youth; to speak up, to speak out, to share the deeper vision that’s been growing in my artist’s mind. 

As an artist, I feel a responsibility to help stoke the imagination of the world; to share a vision that reflects the potential in our world not as it appears, but as it can be imagined. To create something new, we need to be able first, to dream, to imagine the unimaginable – To find the extraordinary in the ordinary, hiding in plain view.  To elevate an understanding of what is possible; to imagine the impossible in order to bring it into the world of potential; to introduce it into the collective imagination, whispering this vision out into the world; suggesting a new current of thought into the conversation – This is my role as an artist. This is the purpose of my life’s work, seeking to approach life as I do art; with the same intention to weave meaning, depth, understanding, connection, balance and intention into all aspects of my relationship; with myself, with others, with the planet and with purpose.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

From the first mark of contact, turning tree into wood, a process begins to unfold that obscures the true nature, the beauty that is its pure essence, the unmarred spirit of the tree. All the lines of the grain, the colors, the patterns, the swirls and burls, the ribbons and curls – that beauty that, as a woodworker, one develops an eye for, peering through the rough, ripped, worn and torn exterior.

All this beauty, all of the character – unique to each individual tree just as to each of us, is the result of all the impacts and influences of the trees life.  The passages from wet to dry seasons, from year to year. Through the long term cycles and scales of time. The situations and stressors; the rains, the winds, the sun, the minerals in the soil, the mycelium and fungal networks that economize these minerals in cooperation with the tree, turning minerals to nutrients and sunlight into glucose and ultimately energy; the ebb and flow of competition within the cooperative interconnection – all these combine to shape and form the unique character and beauty within each tree, each entity, each being.  The trauma and stress of their lives is recorded in their lines and patterns, stored in their grain. In large part, this shapes the beauty that we see in the chatoyance of a highly worked piece of wood with the grain revealed by the degree to which a skilled woodworker can remove the evidence of his influence on the inner beauty of the wood.

Sanding then, becomes a process of removing, little by little, the scratches and scars that exist through our own influence. From the first cut of the saw that turns tree into wood, the rips and rends of branches torn from the fall, the patterns created through the milling process that further removes the association of wood with tree and tree with life, in the way we do with so many things, deaf to the voice of life and turning blindly to the old playbook of “resource” “industry” and “economy”.

I view sanding as a process of reflection and reminder. The beginning is course.  Perhaps a file or a rasp that scratches away bigger scratches and roughly shapes the area, sometimes even further obscuring, until a later stage, the truth that lies beneath.

But over time, from one grit of sandpaper to the next, each one removing deeper scratches while leaving smaller ones in its wake, that truth begins to emerge. One step and a time, from the rasp and rough grit through to the incredibly fine…. somewhere on this path, the wood gives way to tell the story of the tree once again. And in doing so, in ways subtle and not, we can learn something of ourselves in the process. About the traumas we store in our systems, in our muscles, bones, minds and hearts; in the grain that makes us us through time, as we pass our patterns forward into each new generation, even as we look towards each for change.

Perhaps this is why woodworking and mediation have for me, become so closely aligned.  The trees share with me their wisdom, these and many other lessons and reflections. If I am to discover, reveal and share my own inner beauty, the strength and purpose of my spirit, then I too must sand with finer and finer grit, that which has accumulated through my human experience. Revealing and removing those impacts, influences and traumas that have shaped my thinking, detaching beliefs and values from the world of life; its rhythms that dance in syncopated balance, the connections, interconnections, interdependence and belonging.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://njwwoodworks.com
• Instagram: @njwwoodworks
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/njwwoodworks/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahwitenstein/
• Youtube: @njwwoodworks7241 , https://youtu.be/rH7aSWwcfP0?si=_aopRypWYVCA1c3l
• Other: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/njwwoodworks