Days of Petanque: Ed

Date: January 24, 2020 at 7:42:00 PM PST

I have played petanque in Sonoma for over a year, and still have not spoken more than a hundred words to Ed Clay. Yet, because he is clear-eyed and direct, I seem to have a sense of the man. He is a plain spoken man, a fine example of the American male, what someone well versed in tropes, stereotype and  clichés might call a salt of the earth sort of man. He is a man well chosen to be charged with insuring the pétanque courts are we'll maintained. I have watched as he sees to the trees being well watered an mulched, courts patched and weeded, leaves raked for competitions, and recycling sorted all without apparent complaint. But he is also something else. He is a woodworker, a sculptor, an artist. 

I have never been to his woodshop or even seen his creations in person, but he tells me he makes stools, or maybe they are chairs, sometimes in the traditional style with thee legs, sometimes with four. It is not so much what he makes as it is the process he goes through that interests me. He must start with a block or slab of wood and judge whether or not the chair's seat lives within it. Once satisfied that it is possible to free a shape that is worth the effort he must begin the process of stripping away everything that is not the seat, the trick being knowing when to stop. The shape may be revealed but the finish awaits. I think it may be the finish that is most underrated in this process. The shape under a sure hand may come quickly, but the finish…for that there is no shortcut. It is a matter of patient care and timing. An infinite variety of textures, the way a painter might choose between brushes and a palette knife on different parts of a canvas. And the sealing or breathing of the wood beneath finish coats, must marry the desired look and the nature of the wood to reflect light or to capture shadows. Consideration for the intended end use, a museum or corporate office, a penthouse alcove or a child's playroom. A chemists polymer or natural wax. Or no sealant at all. Hand rubbed to highlight the wood's natural oils.

I think it must be a combination of experience and intuition, this business of both releasing the chair within and also bending the grain to his will. The marriage of craft and artistry, of form and function, to produce not simply a chair to sit on, but a thing apart that will cause a person of sufficient sensitivity to at first run their fingers lightly over the surface and then to place their palm on it to get a sense of its mass, its solidness, to know if this is a thing in passing or destined to be passed down for generations. A potential buyer would feel gently at first, the way you may rub a dogs ears, before stroking its back and finally giving a firm couple of pats on its haunches. The buyer then presses down firmly on the chair's seat. Two, three quick pushes. Thus satisfied he sits. A smile crosses his face.

A well made chair does not just support the sitter, it extends his weight to the floor. Connects him to the earth. The smile on the sitter's face is not one of simple comfort, he is immersed in an act of creation. A rare chair, a rare artist that makes that possible.

For Ed to work the bones of what was a living thing in a way that is both respectful and masterful must surely on some level be a transcendence experience. It is a work not just of brute force but a fashioning of a piece of art in a tradition where the motions of a hand reveal a hidden form of the creation. How fine would it be to have such a man put his arms across your shoulders?

I think it is no accident that Jesus is framed as a carpenter, and he is remembered on a cross of wood. Subliminal maybe, but also maybe intentional. Certainly elemental. Like the man.

When I lived in Tucson in the 60s I was within sight, across an expanse of desert, the towers of the mission of San Xavier del Bac. Ed has created altar furniture for that 200 year old structure. We swim in a common river of existence and only occasionally are blessed to recognize with whom we share the journey. I am blessed many times over with my fellow petanque swimmers.

For more info about Ed I recommend: http://edclay.com/  https://www.furnituremarolles.com/home/  

https://napavalleyregister.com/lifestyles/home-and-garden/ed-clay-the-napa-valley-furniture-artist/article_0646a328-9faf-56e4-8eb6-5385ea36e873.html

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"Think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was that I had such friends."
― William Butler Yeats