About
Galdrecraft is the online shop for the art and works of Cen M. Galdre. Based in Vancouver, WA (USA) just north of Portland. Galdrecraft began as an outlet for handmade wood and resin jewelry but has grown to include hardwood boxes, shelves, trays, furniture, and metal work. Cen is a self-taught woodworker but has a multi-disciplinary education and background in a variety of media.The works of Galdrecraft are intended to bring a sense of magic, mystery, and well being into our mundane dystopian lives. A better world is possible and we can start bringing it into reality by reflecting it in our daily lives in addition to our actions.
I have often struggled to describe my work. I make things that make sense to me but often, frustratingly so, folks ask “what is this for?” about what is clearly a box or a spoon. It’s a box and a spoon, respectively. There are, of course, those who understand my work or I wouldn’t be able to support myself and keep making things.
My spouse recently looked at some objects I was making and said that I approach them with a respect not unlike a respect for the dead. She got flustered at this being an inadequate description and didn’t want me to think she thought I was making things for the dead, though I often do. I didn’t think that and I understood what she was saying. If someone chose to be buried with my work that would certainly be flattering.
What I came to realize is that how I approach crafting and creating items, whether it is a box or a spoon or a trinket or a charm, is with a sincerity that is out of sync with the world we inhabit.
I am making things for another world. A world where everyone has small precious trinkets and memories and objects they wish to cherish in boxes that treat them with the reverence one should reserve for such things. Where mourning the death of a bumblebee, or a fallen bird, is worth taking time out of ones day. There should be flowers cut for such events with words spoken, gentle and sincere. A world where friends exchange gifts and charms freely and regularly, with well wishes and intention and those gifts are cherished heirlooms that pile up like acorns in the hollow of a tree. A tangible representation of the love one has received and given in a life well-lived. A world where the objects we interact with have value and meaning and we develop relationships with such things and there is a reverence and appreciation for them and the lives they “live”. Tools and utensils are cared for and thanked at the end of their service. Furniture and cabinets are cared for and celebrated, past on, repaired, and endlessly re-used and remade.
We do not live in that world, but I think it is where I am from. So to describe my work I would say that I make things for another world, one that does not exist but perhaps if I keep making things someday it will.
-Cen Galdre