Meet the Artist
Uli Kirchler
Woodworking
Born and raised in the German-speaking part of Italy, Uli Kirchler was a one-man-band musician in Europe for 10 years before finding his way to woodworking. For the past 25 years, he has relied on his imagination and fascination with wood to hone his skills without formal training. Sustainability is important to him, and he uses the entire tree, including twigs and sawdust for inlays. He selects each piece of wood himself, often choosing pieces with spalting (fungus-caused discoloration) to create exotic and alluring art. He also uses natural characteristics like holes and cracks to inlay twigs, rocks, eggshells, rice, bricks, and aluminum shavings.
Materials and tools used include: West Coast woods from Oregon and California, shaped with a chainsaw, bandsaw, scroll saw, and sanders. He exclusively uses a scroll saw to create his landscape castles and villages, with towers that burst in and out of chunks of wood with the flick of a wrist.