Mark Levin
Lily Pad Console

A biomorphic Lily Pad Console by renowned American woodworker Mark Levin.

“Mark’s aesthetic is derived from nature’s small wonders, flowers, leaves, fruit, the occasional vegetable as well as the female form. He master­fully takes these shapes and wraps them in sumptuous curves and graceful currents.

Mark creates with solid woods for their intrinsic value, virility, and rapidity of execution. The grain and beauty of the wood have little influence during the initial design process. He visualizes new work in matte black and believes that if a piece has a presence draped in black, is executed with deftness and passion then the inner beauty of the wood will take flight.

Most of his work is built using the stack lamination process where smaller pieces of wood are glued together to form much larger blocks or ​“blanks”. The stack lamination process provides strength, scale, and endless artistic possibilities. Once the blank is completed, he roughs out the work with chainsaws and automobile disk grinders. As the final form emerges, he tapers to more delicate power tools and finally hand tools to define the details and sumptuous curves.

Mark learned woodworking in junior high school industrial arts and had his first commission, a blanket chest, while a high school senior. At college, he studied under Bobby Falwell, a graduate student of Wendell Castle. Immediately upon graduating college Mark opened his first shop in Evanston, Illinois. In 2012, after a few decades, detours, and zigging when he should have zagged, he set up his current shop in Albuquerque, NM” (The Furniture Society).