steven's art: handcrafted paddles
My husband Steven started making handcrafted, custom made paddles earlier this year. It was a natural thing actually. He was a white water kayaker for many, many years and he still loves flat water paddling.
He always has told me that the paddle is your connection to the water. When we moved here, he spent a lot of time with my dad learning woodworking skills he never had before, so he was in perfect alignment for this project. I believe his paddle making started with my friend Cheryl Wilson, who gave him the idea to make her a stand up paddle (SUP) for paddle boarding. Here’s Steven with his first hand crafted paddles on December 31st, 2011! The SUP paddle is hanging right next to him.
Here's cheryl and me with her finished SUP paddle, January 7, 2012
Since then Steven has been perfecting his skills, trying various kinds of wood and techniques.He’s even gotten out his airbrush to paint them! The paddles are purposely made very lightweight, weighing only 20-25 ozs. They are also very beautiful.
The paddles are practically dripless (no water on your lap when kayaking) because of the way Steven shapes the paddle blades; see below. He has been using my dad's tools to make the paddles, including some tools that dad made… keeping my father in our hearts and in our spirits.
The blue speckled paddle above is Cheryl's new kayak paddle!
I just finished editing and producing a set of videos that show Steven's process of airbrushing a "night sky" / star design on one of the paddles. One day I went to see Steven when he was working on the paddles and filmed him as he worked. I will embed this first video here. There are 3 videos in total. if you so desire a peek into his art! I am obviously very, very proud of him. There was a lot of raw film that had to be edited and I had to learn how to do it! But I did not mind the work at all. xoxo
“ Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”