Claude Godcharles – A passion for wood crafts
A lifelong interest in craft and creating objects from diverse materials brought Claude to the field of woodworking over twenty years ago. Claude found fame at a young age when he dazzled his family with his creative use of popsicle sticks to build unusable objects like ashtrays and flower pots. These one-of-a-kind creations graced the knick-knack shelves of embarrassed relatives for decades, but few have survived to this day.
After brief forays into pottery, enamels, drawing, glass sculpture and electro-acoustic musical instruments – generally unnoticed by the public, formative though they were – Claude put his eclectic craft interests aside to devote his early professional years to an engineering career. Twenty years later, after reflecting on his diminishing satisfaction with the technological world, Claude re-aligned his priorities so he could catch up on lost time and threw himself wholeheartedly into all manner of woodworking.
For Claude, the appeal of working with wood resonates deep within. As one of the first materials used by mankind, wood has withstood the test of time to find new roles in industry up to the present. It is recalled by most as “something people used to make things with”. It is no secret to the growing numbers of woodworking enthusiasts that crafting wood provides a unique kind of satisfaction and wonderment that renews itself with every project undertaken.
Claude’s focus on honing his skills push him to learn constantly. He worked in a professional cabinet shop; he takes instruction from notable masters of the craft and has attended renowned schools such as College of the Redwoods, now the Krenov School, where he participated in intense summer workshops.
Woodworking is a broad field in which many intricate techniques are used to achieve fine grades of work. Until recently, many of these techniques were mastered as individual specialties. But the modern use of communication and ease of access to information and tools has changed that, enabling Claude to study and practice a wide spectrum of wood working techniques, from stock preparation, milling, joinery, carving and turning to marquetry, inlay, veneering and finishing.
But woodworking techniques are only the means to materialize design concepts. To develop his designs, Claude has self-educated in furniture and architecture design history, studying style movements and their significant innovators, and researching their creative influences, not only in the well documented Anglo-American traditions but also across the fine furniture traditions of Europe and Asia.
Claude is a long standing member of BAWA, and currently president of West Bay Woodturners Association. Claude has been teaching woodworking classes at the Palo Alto Adult School for over ten years in order to better promote and disseminate the life enhancing experience of woodworking.