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As a 4-year-old, the woods behind my grandparents’ house in Bronxville, N.Y., was both foreboding and magical to me. My grandfather would take me for walks there almost every day during the year my father served in Vietnam. We’d look under rocks, find bird’s nests and poke around the underbrush.
I clearly remember one day my grandfather bringing along a saw from his woodshop. And when we reached a certain tree, we stopped and he began sawing a limb off the trunk. He gave no explanation.
After slicing through the limb, he looked at the freshly cut end grain. Then he put this limb on top of a fallen trunk or rock and sawed off a disk about 1″ thick. He picked the disk off the forest floor and handed it to me.
I looked at the wood. And the wood looked back at me.
Somehow rot or mineral streaks had created a smiley face in the end grain of the disk , two eyes and a perfect grinning mouth. I kept that chunk of wood for years, but I lost it sometime after we moved to Arkansas.
Since then, I’ve encountered many faces in the boards that have passed under my hands , there’s a reason they call it “face grain.” For me, wood grain is like puffy clouds; I’m always looking for patterns or meaning.
Turns out, I’m not alone. Reader Chris Burn of Ottawa, Ontario, sent me the photo above of a sheet of veneer that came out of a plant in North Bay, Ontario.
It’s pretty cool. But I’m glad that this is a rare occurrence. If every log I cut open was looking at me, I might think twice about firing up the table saw.
– Christopher Schwarz
P.S. To download the full-resolution photo, click on the link below.
