When he was two years old Paul Gibson’s name was changed to Michael Miller after he was adopted by a Mennonite family. At 14 he began to learn a very old art of woodworking from an old Mennonite gentleman who taught him to make his measurements using the story pole method wherein the pole tells the story. By age 21 he had his first cabinet shop and began a successful professional career opening high end cabinetry shops in Oregon and Canada. But as he approached his 30’s he grew restless. He made yet another change in his life and headed south to Big Sur on the California coast. He explored the mountains and canyons for fallen redwood limbs which he collected and carried on his shoulders to his truck and then drove home to his shop. He lit his wood stove, rolled up his sleeves and transformed those limbs into 6 dining room chairs with backs as tall as a giraffe’s neck and a dining room table to match. This set was shipped to a client in New York. Some days he just made chairs and carefully stacked them in the bed of his pickup and headed toward the city. He’d find a spot, pull over and by the end of the day the furniture was gone. He liked the furniture he made but he longed for something more. He searched the coast for the biggest piece of wood he could find and emerged with a fifteen hundred pound redwood burl. He wrestled that piece of burl home and carved it into a gigantic replica of his left hand. The Hand showed for three years at the Henry Miller Library and people from all over the world wrapped them selves around it, took pictures of it, even made love in it. Then there’s that thing sitting at the end of his very long driveway. That thing looks like an old wooden phone booth or a piece of furniture set out for someone to take. That thing is his redwood mailbox and if you look closely you’ll see an abalone shell inlay of the Rocky Creek Bridge. From his deck on a cliff above the ocean he has a stunning view of the real Rocky Creek Bridge. He was a superintendent during the retrofit of the bridge a few years back. He came to know everything about that bridge and decided to sculpt it in 32nd scale which makes the piece 14’6” long and 42” high. Then there’s the dilapidated redwood water tank he transformed into an eight foot tall martini glass you could bathe in. Early in the morning he sits with his coffee and his thoughts in his study at the roll top desk he built for himself from a vision in his head. No plans, no drawings, no paper - just a vision. Behind him sits a twelve hundred pound redwood burl he carved into a chair fit for a giant. “Why do you build these things,” some people ask. “It’s inside me,” he replies, “I have to let it out. And when we let our light shine, we give permission to others to do the same. My creations seem to bring out the human sense of wonder and people immediately want to touch and climb into my expressions. It begins as an idea and ends as a human experience.” He’s in his shop now working on his latest idea. Rumor has it he’s building a swing that’s so big you disappear into the Big Sur sky.

Redwood tree Redwood limb chair