Schumacher puts wood to work … beautifully

RANGELY I Mark Schumacher has made his living out of working with wood. Now he’s making art.
The 1970 Rangely High School graduate has “been piddling around for about 10 years” with taking pieces of native woods such as cedar or juniper and transforming them into, for example, tables or benches or bowls.
Recently, he opened a shop on Main Street in downtown Rangely, where he sells his handmade wood products.
He calls his business Hound Dog Juniper Wood Works. On his business card it says, “We Have a Nose for Wood.”
The business is located in the building that formerly housed Sportsman’s Liquor, across from Rangely True Value Hardware.
“I have to get the sign (from the liquor store) down,” Schumacher said. “People keep coming in looking for cold beer.”
With fall coming, Schumacher will have less time to devote to his new venture.
“During firewood season, I get busy,” Schumacher said.
He hopes to eventually put a shop in the back of the building — where he displays his wood pieces — so he can keep the showroom open while he’s working.
Schumacher said the juniper and cedar wood he finds around the area — mostly within a 25-mile radius of Rangely — are ideal for making furniture.
“It’s a semiarid hardwood,” he said. “It lasts forever.”
Schumacher will bring home pieces of wood that to the untrained eye look like just a piece of wood.
“It looks like a tree to me,” said his wife, Trudi. “But he comes home all excited, because he can picture what it will look like.”
That sounds like art.