Michael Kimmes, 70
A wood-repurposer extraordinaire! He loves the beautiful possibilities in the woodgrains gleaned from doomed trees. Wood relegated to firewood is reborn. A true artisan.
Michael Kimmes likes to say he was rescued from an orphanage and a life of near-slave labor. Now, he rescues trees destined for firewood.
The native of Dublin, Ireland, was nearly four when an American couple adopted him and brought him to California. As a youth, he worked at a sawmill in Oregon and fell in love with the smell of wood and the timber’s exposed interior. Kimmes eventually found his way to a mentor, wood products manufacturer Earl Roberts of Yuba City, Calif., who taught him how to read the bark of a tree to divine what beauty lay deep inside.
In his South County home, Kimmes picks up a guitar, its body glowing with gold, amber and sienna curls and waves. Certain trees, in certain soils or conditions, produce these structures that, when revealed by saw and sander, create stunning natural art coveted for custom guitar backs, high-end collectible gun stocks, jewelry boxes and turned bowls by artisans around the world. Kimmes gleans his wood from old farm properties, aged orchards and lands being razed for development, often getting leads from friends. He favors walnut for its three-dimensional quality. California walnut, in particular, can produce a clear, bright, highly figured grain, unlike the flat-brown and dark-toned varieties from other parts of the world.
In the late 17th century, Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari popularized such dramatic wood by using it for his violins, cellos and other instruments; people still use the term “fiddleback” to describe it, Kimmes said. The guitar in his hands was built by the late and renowned Lance McCollum, of Colfax, using highly figured walnut Kimmes harvested, then sliced into chunks and sheets in his workshop down the hill. (Fender Guitars and Fodera also are customers.) He strums the instrument to reveal the wood’s acoustic properties: rich tone with a long, long sustain.
“That’s the signature, not only of a hand-crafted instrument, but the quality of the wood itself,” Kimmes says. His voice carries a hint of reverence.
See more treasures created with Kimmes’ wood milled at California Walnut Designs, WoodNut.com
