Dyer woodwork featured in art show

When Laurence Dyer received an invitation to submit work for the all-Sisters Art Exhibit now on at the new public library, he ignored it. But the organizers were persistent.

In a recent interview, Dyer recalled a follow-up phone call from one of them: “I said, ‘I don’t think I’m very good,’ and she said, ‘Well, we don’t understand that because you’re on about 10 people’s lists.’” So he relented, although he still feels “uneasy” about having his handiwork in an art show.

If you go, you will see four of his glossy wooden jewelry boxes plus two bowls in a glass display case in the foyer. And in the community room, where many paintings, photographs and pieces of fiber art are on display, a large hope chest made by Dyer forms a handsome centerpiece.

Dyer insists that he’s not an artist, and that may be true. But some of his work with wood blurs the line between craft and art and challenges the distinction.

One delightful aspect of Dyer’s participation in the show is that this role diverges sharply from the one for which he is best known in the community. He is a patriarch in the local real estate industry, the founder, with his two sons, of Ponderosa Properties, LLC (see related story, page 22).

Dyer, who is 78, was active in the business until last year. But his woodworking hobby is not just something that he turned to in retirement. It has been a companion for all of his adult life.

In high school, he recalls, “my typing teacher after six weeks in typing told me to go to the wood shop. So I went down there and I never came back.” His first large project after graduation was a rowboat, and over time he wound up building five boats, one of which he still owns.

His prolific output has included “lots of furniture for the kids (sons Rad and Kevin and daughter Debbie Newport).” Dyer notes that because he had three children he’s had to “make things in threes. Once I made my daughter a grandfather clock and it turned out I had to make three. And that chest I have down at the library? I had to make three of those.

“We used to have a house on the Metolius and I built a lot of furniture for that,” he added. And after the real estate office opened in the early 1990s, he built bookcases, desks and assorted pieces for it.

Dyer and his wife, Betty, live in a modest manufactured house on 40 acres of timberland several miles north of Sisters. Their home is a showcase of Laurence’s woodwork.

Age has not spared Dyer some of its favorite infirmities. He has had full hip and knee replacements and suffers from arthritis. As a result, he finds it difficult to be down on his knees. So he now avoids the larger pieces that require crawling around on the floor and concentrates mainly on smaller pieces that he can build on his workbench.

His shop is in his garage. More precisely, his shop is his garage. If he shoves his dozen or so power saws, lathes etc. to the side he can squeeze his pickup inside, temporarily. The rest of the two-car section of the detached structure is devoted to woodworking. The adjacent section, intended for a third vehicle, stores raw material — wood planks and boards of diverse sizes. “I never throw anything away,” he said.

Much of the wood, surprisingly, comes from Hawaii. Especially for the boxes, lamps and other small pieces he likes to use three types of wood that he identifies as koa, mango and kamani. He gets most of it from a friend and former Sisters resident, photographer Greg Davich, who lives on Maui.

Dyer likes the way the Hawaiian hardwood works up and takes a finish. His standard finish is a mixture of linseed oil, tung oil, and polyurethane, laid on in multiple coats. The more the coats, the higher the luster, but Dyer favors a satin finish rather than high gloss.

Regardless of whether his latest projects lean toward the utilitarian or the highly esthetic, he works from his own visual imagination.

“I don’t use plans,” he said. And even though he’s built a lot of things in threes, no two are exactly alike. They do take differing amounts of time, however.

Recalling the grandfather clocks, for which he got some initial help from clockmaker Ed Beacham, he said: “The first clock I made took me two months. The second took me about 14 days and the third clock took a week.”

He has never sold any of his work, or made it to sell at craft shows.

“People ask me to submit things to craft shows, to set up a booth. But I say that’s the last thing I want to do… That would ruin all my pleasure here, you know, if I just had to do it and do it for making money.”