Bruce Johnson, and his wife Margie, moved to California’s remote North Coast in 1973 to rebuild the historic Fort Ross Chapel, and stayed when Margie got a teaching job in town and Bruce fell in love with the abundant salvaged redwood that he began transforming into massive sculptures.
source/image: Kirsten Dirksen
His art would later earn him worldwide recognition, but he simultaneously became a master builder creating buildings, furniture and even his own home. On five acres surrounded by second-growth redwoods, Johnson built a wooden home for his family in just one year to avoid sacrificing too much studio time, but nearly everything here is crafted by Bruce: copper-and-wood kitchen cupboards; salvaged walnut-wood dining table; a couch made from old wine barrels. It’s obvious Bruce is an accomplished builder, but there is plenty of whimsy here.
He turned a metal “pineapple” – donated after an exhibit- into the stand of a living room lamp that turns on and off with by touching the metal. He carved a reading/sleeping nook out of the living room and wove copper and wood to create sliding doors for privacy.His own sculptural work contains that same whimsy: he took us inside “Lookout”, a hollowed-out redwood stump from which we emerged into a metallic “sleeping quarters” from which we could stand and peer out at his sculpture yard.
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After helping build the iconic Sea Ranch chapel in the ‘80s, he was inspired by create his own take on a sacred space. After years of drawing ideas of variations on a tea house, the concept morphed into a “poetry house” when he stumbled on a poem by Elizabeth Herron (current Sonoma County poet laureate). Built from a salvaged redwood log, the five-sided building was constructed to be deconstructed and moved. Built in the workshop, it traveled 30 miles for an exhibit before resettling in Johnson’s yard.
