COMMUNITY
Week of Jaunuary 13, 2005

Crafting a Utopia

By Pat Wilson

The Golden Mean, a ratio celebrated in Greek architecture and art, as well as in the work of geniuses like Leonardo de Vinci, is a cornerstone in the furniture-making style of Sam Forrest.
Creating beauty from wood, his tables, many with concentric, proportioned circles or lines, illustrate not only the favored style of his workmanship, but also the exacting elements of his skills. Describing his work as reminiscent of art nouveau, the Green Springs resident views his pieces as “allowing my subconscious to reveal itself.”
“Every artist has a statement, mine is formula art revisited,” he said. “The Greek mean was the perfect relationship between two lines, repeated so often in nature.”
Forrest has carried the formula into his other pieces. Textures, colors and form come from deep within his subconscious.
“Sometimes, I break the rule and oppose the form, synthesizing the geometric and organic,” he said. “It’s like an ancient struggle welling from atavistic memory.”
Tables are his preferred pieces, as Forrest finds them the most functional for the expression of his perceptions. The results can be squares, ovals, rectangles or nonconforming shapes in a variety of woods with cherry, oak and poplar being the artisan’s favorites.
“I am at a point where I make what I want to make,” he said.
Forrest’s standard finishing technique involves wet-sanded linseed oil applied with time-consuming repeated saturations over several weeks. Varnishes are an occasional alternative.
The craftsman shows his work at local fairs and exhibits, often resulting in commissioned work. For the month of January, two pieces are featured at the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville.
“One I call Love Dragon, an ash coffee table or bench with a serpentine base attacking the rectangular top. The other is a six-and-a-half-foot swan-necked lamp made from poplar.”
Four years ago, Forrest found the utopian location for his beliefs and his craft – 36 acres in Louisa County that centered around an abandoned rock quarry.
“I first thought of the idea when, years ago, I was visiting the Belle Island Park [Richmond], which had a quarry where they used to get cobblestones,” he said.
Off and on Forrest would research quarries located in Virginia, but his energies to find one for sale proved fruitless.
Then, in 2000, while driving down Patterson Avenue in Richmond, his impulses led him to pull into the offices of Luck Stone and ask an employee about quarries in the area.
“As a Zen Buddhist, I often live on impulse without thinking too much,” said Forrest. “He told me about one in Green Springs and wrote out directions.”
Following negotiations with Vulcan Materials, Forrest created his retreat in Louisa County, Buddha Ranch, which the sign at the entrance describes as “a human conservatory.”
The rural setting, with rustic paths and his ample workshop, along with a modest mobile home, provides the locale for what the owner describes as a place “to conserve the best of the human predicament, to do the right thing and follow your instincts.”
“It’s so peaceful here,” he said.
Forrest’s personal book collection also reflects his interest in a broad range of philosophical and governmental concepts.
With plans to create a meditation center still foremost in his thoughts, Forrest finds financial considerations are delaying its reality. His studio and retreat are the first steps, and here he spends time either watching rabbits scamper among the cedar trees or building one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture.
“To do the project, I needed a shop. That’s how the shop got started,” he said. “I ran out of money, so I had to be reasonable. I knew I could still make furniture, and found out I was more skillful then 20 years ago.”
Although his dreams of a meditation center are on hold, Forrest opens his property to the American Sportfishing Association, a philanthropic group that holds periodic catch-and-release tournaments at the six-acre pond formed by the quarry’s basin. The secluded location with a 50-foot depth of spring-fed water provides sanctuary for at least seven species of fish including large and small-mouthed bass, brim, crappie and eels.
Now, in his mid-60s, Forrest’s life has been as remarkable as the designs he creates.
The Matthews County native served in the U. S. Navy for four years, and then earned a bachelor’s degree in applied social science from Virginia Commonwealth University. This led him to employment as a chief probation officer for the juvenile court system in several Virginia counties in the 1960s.
“My caseload was oppressive, and one day I decided to use the rest of my G. I. Bill [college money] and return to VCU and take classes that used my hands,” he said.
Signing up for ceramics, metal and woodworking courses, Forrest and his instructors found that his talent lay in the latter discipline.
“One semester, the dean let me take 18 credits in woodworking,” he said.
Forrest also gained experience working a summer job for a Richmond antique dealer. For the next 10 years, Forrest supported himself from commissions generated through his Richmond studio. He exhibited his work at gallery and outdoor art shows, and the craftsman garnered numerous best in show honors. Conducting workshops for aspiring artists also filled his time.
Pieces created during that decade can be found in public buildings and private homes throughout Central Virginia.
Still, restless and again “burned out,” as well having gone through a failed marriage, Forrest turned to the sea looking for an alternative lifestyle.
“The well of my ideas went dry, and then like now, if I don’t have any idea, I’m not going to work,” he said.
Forrest purchased a sailboat.
“I took an old car and made a camper out of it and traveled up and down the East Coast twice, hitting every boatyard from Key West to Nova Scotia, looking for my dream boat,” he said. “I didn’t have much money and ended up buying a 54-foot steel ketch in Fort Lauderdale.”
Claiming that he had to “bring the boat back to life,” Forrest refurbished the condemned vessel leaving him virtually broke. Although a novice to the sport, he knew that if he could get to Matthews, he could pull up to a friend’s pier and live rent-free.
“By an act of God, I made it up there. It took 17 days with the motor that worked and sails that didn’t fit,” he said.
His fantasy to sail was not daunted. Forrest added with a smile that his vision of sailing around the world with an all-girl crew never materialized, but he sold the ketch and purchased a 28-foot cutter built by a young Frenchman at Gwynn’s Island. The profit from the exchange would finance his next adventure.
With two country hams, assorted fruits and vegetables, a fresh water supply, a sextant and a VHF radio, Forrest, at age 48, sailed off on a solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1984. His goal was to circumnavigate the globe.
Setting the sails to “near luff,” Forrest reached the Azores in 11 days and wintered in Majorca. During the crossing, he survived a storm so violent that the sailor wedged himself in the bow of the cabin so as not to be tossed about and possibly suffer injuries.
For two years, Forrest visited ports around the Mediterranean, even spending his second winter as a dishwasher on a kibbutz in Israel. The beauty of nature and friendliness of the people on islands such as Crete, Sicily, Cypress and Rhodes formed lasting memories for the sailor.
“I was fascinated by the strength of marine economy, since the Mediterranean can be treacherous with strong winds that blow for days and cliffs along the shoreline that could gnaw you to pieces,” he said.
At numerous ports, Forrest was approached because of the unique yellow hull with eyes painted on the bow, symbolizing “magic on the boat.” Some asked about the former owner who had created the unique artwork, remembering him from past voyages.
Deciding not to cross the Suez Canal into the Red Sea because of the danger of coral reefs and heavy freighter traffic, Forrest sailed westward again, repeating his solo passage of the Atlantic, and returning to Virginia.
Extended periods of solitude between ports were the biggest obstacles faced by the sailor. Depression, followed by reflections on the regrets in his life and then audio hallucinations of barking dogs, occurred during times of becalmed winds. On one occasion, the noises which Forrest imagined he heard turned out to be the U. S. Sprunance, a naval destroyer.
“I looked over my shoulder to see about 200 men looking down at me,” he said. “The captain gave me food and a five-gallon Igloo container of fresh water. He told me he wanted that back.”
The skipper used his more sophisticated communication system to call Forrest’s father in Virginia to let him know he was “still alive.”
Ironically, while in port in Majorca, Forrest met another officer who knew the captain and promised to return the canister.
Back in the states, Forrest then sold his boat for a small profit and took off cross-country in a Volkswagen van to visit locales where he might want next want to settle. The adventure-filled trip led to the conclusion that Matthews County was still “home.”
When the opportunity arose to travel to Indonesia in the late 1980s, Forrest and a woman he knew loaded their knapsacks and flew to the Pacific nation.
“If there is a flaw in a relationship, travel will reveal it. We weren’t speaking after three weeks, and she had to get back to her job after five weeks,” he said. “We’re still good friends though.”
The adventurer has fond memories of the “sweet people” and breathtaking tropical landscape from Bali to Sumatra.
Forrest continued his travels, again solo, through Hong Kong, China, across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Moscow and St. Petersburg, then into Scandinavia.
On one lap of his journey, Forrest met the grandson of Dag Hammarskjold, a former secretary-general of the United Nations, when trying to locate a hostel in Stockholm, Sweden. Later, the youth traveled to the states and spent time with Forrest.
After crossing Scandinavia, Forrest’s final stop was London before flying home.
In the mid-1990s, Forrest was given an employment opportunity to return to China as a design consultant for an Oriental company.
“I loved the country, especially the filial respect of the people and the cooking,” he said. “I was depressed when the job ended.”
The adventurer has also hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail, and even been a candidate for a seat on the Richmond City Council. Forrest has positive comments about the people he met during the 45 days he spent walking from Georgia to Virginia along what he calls a “national treasure,” but his opinions on officials in local government are not always so complimentary.
Living in Richmond until moving to Louisa, Forrest adopted the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Growing up in a Christian-oriented family, he was first exposed to the practice through classes conducted by a Buddhist abbot lecturing at the University of Richmond.
“I was looking for an alternative,” he said. “I found Buddhism and the meditation that is its heart.”
The technique for accessing the subconscious spilled into his woodworking, bringing full circle the emergence of the skills of his younger life.
“I didn’t comprehend what my hands were doing before,” he said. “I’m at an age now where I can give an intellectual statement about what I am doing. Following what your body knows is a proper way to live, to strive for perfection.”