Frank Sammut —Fine Wood Working - theHumm June 2021
Frank Sammut —Fine Wood Working - theHumm June 2021
By Sally Hansen
Art… and Soul
Kokopelli Custom Woodworking is Frank Sammut’s celebration of the natural beauty and wonder encapsulated in the trees that fall on his 87 acres of bush lot near Maberly. His lifelong fondness for working with his hands has culminated in a passion for creating one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture that showcase nature’s beauty. Wood speaks to him. And he creates poetry in response.
Frank’s artistic tables and benches are as much sculptures as they are functional pieces of furniture. In the hands of a lesser artistic sensibility, much of the wood he celebrates would be fodder for the woodchipper or the fireplace, but Frank sees the character, the resilience, and the perseverance that created the intricate whorls and shapes his pieces feature. As global warming and over-population threaten our habitat, it has become fashionable to appreciate trees. Frank Sammut instinctively recognizes the value of salvaging dead and windblown trees and creating family heirlooms from “waste”.
As he watches the reclaimed trees being run through the sawmill, Frank visualizes the best use of each unique board. His favourite wood is black cherry for the beauty of its grain and its ease of working with hand tools, but he also works with black and red oak, hard and soft maple, elm, gnarly ironwood, and white pine. George Nakashima, the “godfather” of live edge furniture, inspired him. Nakashima was one of the leading innovators of 20th century furniture design and a father of the American craft movement. Frank visited his studio in Pennsylvania and now specializes in live edge pieces. In his spacious, specially built workshop, Frank air dries every board for at least two years, giving him the ability to select the pieces best suited for live edge design.
Kokopelli furniture endures indoors and out. His pieces are lasting tributes to the beauty of nature and the artistry of a fine woodworker. Frank Sammut’s workmanship is superb. He typically finishes outdoor furniture with a clear matte finish, applying a full seven coats of marine-grade varnish from Holland to each piece by hand, and sanding after each coat. This is the same durable finish that many wooden canoe builders use, and it is a time-consuming process that demands attention to detail.
Wood itself inspires his most unusual and striking works. His live edge pieces bear testament to the trees’ ability to withstand the ravages of time and heal themselves and endure. Pieces with names like “Lightning Strike” and “Waterfall Table” transform scars into marvelous functional sculptures. Frank has mastered the art of butterfly joinery and he has a gift for creating complementary legs and bases for his pieces. He likes a challenge, and his results are original and artistic.
Transcending Dental Medication
… or, how does a Mississauga dentist become an accomplished custom woodworker? In Maberly? It’s an interesting story. Both sets of Frank’s grandparents immigrated to Canada from Malta. His dad was a self-employed letterpress hand printer who loved the outdoors and reserved weekends for his family. When Frank was fourteen, he came home and proudly announced he had a job delivering the Toronto Star. “Wait a minute,” said his father, “does that include delivering the Saturday paper as well? If so, you call them back and quit because Saturday is our fishing day!”
As a teen Frank started building things like display cases using hand tools. This was not his father’s area of expertise, but Frank loved wood and he loved working with his hands. Around the same age his fate as a dentist was inadvertently decided by the cruelty of children. His peers called him “Beaver” because of a noticeable overbite. Fortuitously, the dentist who corrected his appearance with braces was a wonderful human, and Frank decided that he would like to help people too. Like his father, he wanted to be in control of his own hours, and eventually set up his own dental practice. His wife Sue ran the business side of the practice very competently, leaving Frank free to work with his hands inside people’s mouths.
The more Frank practiced woodworking the more he became hooked — and competent. He soon was making traditional furniture for their home. He is self-taught and particularly cites watching Norm Abrams’ TV show The New Yankee Workshop. He taped every episode, and remembers pausing instructions on mortise and tenon joinery, half lap joints and dovetail joinery over and over until he mastered each technique.
As the city grew more crowded and removed from nature, the couple began a systematic search for the perfect cottage. They loved the treed landscape of the Canadian Shield north of Toronto, so they searched for the warmer southernmost point of the Shield in Ontario and discovered Lanark County. They then began weekly searches for the right location for their retirement home and fell in love with the place and the people. As Frank put it, “It’s like living in 1965 — people are friendly, and nobody is on their cell phone.” They looked at 45 properties and eventually found a cottage on a beautiful lake near Maberly that did not require a steep climb from one to the other.
They started cottaging and hated going back to work in the city, so they decided to sell the practice and retire at the age of 50. (After his retirement Frank worked in public health with underprivileged children in Lanark Village, and then for the Smiths Falls Rideau Community Heath Services to provide emergency dental work for needy people.) Frank used all of his woodworking skills and developed many new ones during the cottage renovation. Their kitchen cabinetry is a beautiful example of his success.
He also purchased a nearby 87-acre bush lot where he harvests only dead or windblown trees, and he rescues neighbourhood trees that have been felled for construction. On his birthday each year he treats himself to a new woodworking tool. Two years ago he upped the ante and bought himself a restored 1952 Massey Harris Mustang tractor at an auction in Perth. He is delightfully proud of it and uses it to haul felled trees out of his woodlot. After they moved he designed a spacious Cape Cod style workshop (his friends call it his shed) and had it built to house his tools and his lumber.
The wood itself is his muse for his live edge and artistic pieces. The individual live edge boards are rough sawn from the logs, and Frank watches for specially patterned pieces as nature’s paintbrush strokes are revealed in the still-wet wood. To him, each board tells a story, and the unique shape and grain of a particular board inspires him to decide what he wants to create with it. Sue provides the same organizational support during his second career that he depended on as a dentist. They devised a system whereby Frank stacks, stickers, numbers and photographs each board so he can go to his computer and locate a specific board that caught his artist’s eye.
Custom pieces for his clients provide him with another challenge. Just present him with an idea, a picture, the dimensions and application of the piece you are looking for, and he will transform your vision of a special piece into a reality. He usually exceeds your expectations within two months of your order. Frank does all his fine woodworking and custom wood design without the use of any patterns.
Art in the Garden at Kiwi Gardens
Despite Covid, Kokopelli Custom Woodworking will have many pieces on display and available for sale at Kiwi Gardens’ annual Art in the Garden show near Perth. Tickets are available for reserved timeslots across two successive weekends — June 18-20 and June 25-27, at ticketsplease.ca or at the nursery. Please see the back of Frank Sammut’s Trading Card for his coordinates and details of this and other upcoming Kokopelli events.WHO Frank Sammut
Frank Sammut —Fine Wood Working - theHumm June 2021
By Sally Hansen
Art… and Soul
Kokopelli Custom Woodworking is Frank Sammut’s celebration of the natural beauty and wonder encapsulated in the trees that fall on his 87 acres of bush lot near Maberly. His lifelong fondness for working with his hands has culminated in a passion for creating one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture that showcase nature’s beauty. Wood speaks to him. And he creates poetry in response.
Frank’s artistic tables and benches are as much sculptures as the......
Warden Proclaims June as PRIDE Month - theHumm June 2021
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For the last year, membe......
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