THE ARTS: Meet the Staveman
“Oracle,” from David Acker’s ship series.
Posted: Thursday, February 16, 2012 8:00 am | Updated: 10:17 am, Tue Feb 14, 2012.
Gary Adams | 0 comments
One of the intriguing facets of any artist is how they see the world with different eyes. What might appear junk to the average person sparks something in the artistic eye.
Take David Acker, aka the “Staveman.” Where wine producers see used wine barrels to be destroyed, Acker sees the makings of art. He fashions tables, boats and other creations from discarded wine barrels, an unusual endeavor at best, as he points out: “You tell people you create art with wine barrels and they usually turn the topic to something else. People just don’t know that these barrels have all this beauty and universal uses.”
So how did Acker get started in this unusual art form? “I lived on Orcas Island for many years, where I did construction for almost 40 years. I took a trip down to the wine country just outside San Francisco to visit a friend who had a little winery there. One day, he asked me, ‘Have you ever cut barrels in half?’ Well, I’ve cut a lot of wood but never a barrel, so I cut one in half and the wine came running out, and it sort of grabbed me. I’ve never cut a barrel in half since, just in respect for the barrel, as far as I am concerned.”
A carpenter and builder by trade, Acker has always been drawn to art, so repurposing the wine barrels into artistic creations in his Warrenton studio on U.S. Highway 101 was a natural fit. Now, making his wine barrel creations is his full-time occupation. This is a man hooked on barrels. “You can do a lot of things with barrel staves and the rings that hold them together,” he explained. “After I take them apart, I always notice how when they are laid out, they form all these interesting images from the wine and the cooper work (a cooper is someone who makes staved vessels). They kind of look like a nucleus or something. They inspired me to make all kinds of stuff.”
Working with American oak wine staves can be a touchy business, as Acker points out. “You don’t have to use a measuring tape or anything like that. They just go together in primitive ways. You could put a little kit together and send it to Africa and someone there could make something very useful from it. Most people don’t realize what these things can generate after all those years of use. However, they are not very receptive to our types of saws and tools, which are designed to make a straight line; they kind of want to run away from that. But still, you can see from my work they can make eloquent and beautiful straight lines.”
Acker has an interesting offer he calls New Dimensions. He sells staves cut into different dimensions, prestained with whatever wine was in the barrel. The buyer can create his or her own piece of art. If you send in a photo of your creation, David will put it on his website. So have some fun and share in David Acker’s fascination with wine barrels.
For more information, visit www.staveman.com
