PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Aroostook County is home to many creative people including woodwork artisans like Randy McPherson in Washburn and Scott Gagnon in Presque Isle.
Woodwork artisans make up a small number of creatives located in The County and let their passion for the community drive them to create their artwork.
It’s the first year Randy McPherson has sold his woodwork art, primarily at the Presque Isle farmers market and at Uniquely Aroostook Artisan Boutique and Gift Shop in Portage.
“I had always wanted us to be able to do that together and go on a Saturday morning. Once [Randy] retired then that was an easy thing for us to do,” his wife Laura McPherson said.
Randy McPherson started doing the farmers market a couple of years ago after his wife sold acrylic paintings there for the past five years before her retirement. Before the pandemic, McPherson had made Maine-shaped clocks for Clocks By Christopher in Ellsworth.
McPherson works in a garage woodshop next to his home with two router machines and two computers that run software programs for his designs on signs, pieces of furniture and bookends. He also uses two laser cutters for wood engraving, wood burning and 3-D boxes, plus a sanding machine to save time on his projects.
McPherson uses mostly live edge cedar for his wood sourced from four different portable saw mills, including cedar from the Amish community. He also uses maple, oak and pine.
“When I was 13 years old, I was in Scouts, and I was working on merit badges to get my Eagle rank and I took a woodworking merit badge and I had a love of woodworking after that,” McPherson said.
McPherson started to use a laser a few weeks ago for the moose shadow boxes he makes, primarily for wood engraving and wood burning projects. He started buying the patterns he uses for 3-D printing for the shadow boxes, such as moose and deer. Other projects he has worked on have used computer numeric control router wood machines, which he has worked with for five years.
“It’s something I’ve been interested in. I just never knew if I could do it with a laser I got. After studying the manual better, I’ve learned how to cut out all the shapes,” McPherson said.
After McPherson buys the print files online, sets the code on his computer for his machines to run and the laser cuts them out, he sands the piece. Laura McPherson stains or paints them, then Randy McPherson frames the woodwork. Sometimes he takes a picture, runs it through his computer and woodburns it with his laser engraving tool.
McPherson bought the small laser last year with a smaller one for his wife to use. Last summer, McPherson completed some big projects including a 5-foot-tall lighthouse, a 4-foot-tall wishing well, and is branching out with decorative and custom camp signs.
The price range for the McPhersons’ woodwork pieces is from $5 to $70, with the goal of keeping prices affordable for residents and visitors to Aroostook County. Crafty Gram Studio, which is his business’ name, has an online presence with Etsy and Facebook Marketplace pages.
“We’re retired. This gives us something to do every day,” Laura McPherson said.
The reception has been good for the McPhersons, who have lots of returning customers. They won’t participate in the next two farmers markets because of crafting events lined up in Caribou in October and at the Aroostook Centre Mall in December.
In the same vicinity of the Presque Isle farmers market, Scott Gagnon was working on an eagle statue in a public space in order to put his work out into the community more. Recently, he got permission from the Irish Setter Pub to set up a table for his woodwork pieces.
Gagnon, 41, began his woodwork art this year, but has a background in drawing animal and people portraits in his early 20s. Gagnon hand cuts his art projects from cedar and spalted maple using a variety of tools such as a few chisels and files, a chainsaw and a Dremel.
He does all the painting and staining himself and describes woodwork art as therapy.
“When you realize there’s more important things than the influence of others and you bring your personality out into the world, you don’t have to be accurate,” Gagnon said. “Less influence from the outside world helps you find yourself.”
Gagnon finds the beauty of his work through nature by collecting wood pieces he comes across, or from what his friends and neighbors give him. Gagnon, who describes his artwork as abstract with his inspiration coming from nature, is most happy when working on his next woodworking project out of his small one-room shop behind the duplex where he lives with his family.
“Pretty much anything I make you can set outside,” Gagnon said.
Gagnon has a big list of projects coming up like a bear for a front porch, welcome and last name signs and a ram skull.
Gagnon sells his artwork under Lasting Impressions and recently sold an engraved nautical wood burning for $130. Gagnon can be reached for commissions at scottyart40@gmail.com.
WASHBURN, Maine — September 20, 2022 — Randy McPherson oversees his laser engraving machine in his workshop as he begins work on his moose head silhouette. (Paul Bagnall | The Star-Herald)
WASHBURN, Maine — September 20, 2022 — Randy McPherson shows off a moose hat rack he recently made in his workshop. (Paul Bagnall | The Star-Herald)
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — September 21, 2022 — Scott Gagnon shows his displays of his woodwork art, including a recently completed eagle that can be displayed outside. (Paul Bagnall | The Star-Herald)
