After a circuitous career spanning more than four decades, furniture maker John Spivey is finally doing what he loves. “I started with the idea back in 1977 or so,” recalled Spivey. “But I got diverted into other things, like being a carpenter or cabinet maker.” He also taught mathematics at Santa Barbara Middle School for years — unsure how to transform his passion for woodworking into a bona fide enterprise — until 2007, when Spivey “made the decision that [he] was going to do what [he’s] always wanted to do.”
Spivey — who moved to Santa Barbara 30 years ago to be with his UCSB-educated wife — designs and builds custom wood furniture out of a small shop as a one-man operation. Much of the work is inspired by his time in a Japanese calligraphy class, during which he was exposed to the art of sumi-e, an ancient East Asian style of ink wash painting. “I try to capture the gesture of a brushstroke as if the design was done by a sumi-e master,” he explained.
Citing their quality in addition to their environmental sustainability, Spivey revealed that his preferred medium to work with is North American hardwoods, specifically maple and cherry. “The forests on the East Coast are actually expanding, and as a lot of family farms are going under — they’re reverting back to forests,” he said. “This type [of wood] is not something that’s detrimental to the world in the way that harvesting tropical hardwood is.”