Lawyers and the Arts

Gold River Attorney Turns Salvaged Wood Into Objects of Art

Jack Nissen

Jack Nissen uses a lathe to turn salvaged wood into art.

Hackberry Bowl

This bowl is "spalted" hackberry. "Spalting" is the name of the process of microbes "eating" the wood. Some woods develop these dark lines during the process.

Cherry Wood Bowl

This is a bowl made from cherry wood laminated to black walnut.

Pear Tree Bowl

This bowl is made from a piece of wood from a pear tree where it was grafted to apple root stock (the dark red is the apple).

Poker Chips Holder

This holder for cards and poker chips is made from very highly figured myrtle burl.

When attorney Jack Nissen of the Gold River firm Nissen & Douglas wanted a cigar humidor years ago, he thought why should he pay $500.00 for one when he could make one for himself for $1,500.00 or less. So off to the tool store he went. After countless humidors, jewelry boxes, small tables, etc. he bought an old (circa 1922) junked metal working lathe. (It cost more to truck and forklift the lathe into his garage than he paid for it.) He converted it to wood turning and has made very few flat, square, plumb and level items since.

Jack prefers to work with salvaged wood. Where he lives in the El Dorado County foothills, there is apple, pear, walnut, manzanita, oak and many other varieties of wood free for the asking. Sacramento attorney Bruce Hagel's firewood pile full of olive wood provided Jack with a pickup truck load of some of the most beautiful wood that there is at the small cost of three small turned items for Mr. & Mrs. Hagel and a neighbor of theirs.

Jack donates to charitable "silent auction" fund raisers about as much of his work as he sells. He has donated his work to, among other groups, Lawyers for Justice in New Jersey, Sacramento Women Lawyers, the Asian Bar Association of Sacramento, Folsom Zoo (the "Howl, Growl and Wine" event), El Dorado County Women's Center, and El Dorado County Center for the Arts. He considers himself a rather major supporter of local medical emergency rooms as well. One of his pieces, "Troublemaker," cost $1,337.50 to make: $37.50 for the wood blank and $1,300.00 to Marshall Hospital's Emergency Room for the repair his mangled left middle finger. (It is fine now.)

At the 50th annual Convention of the State Bar of California Art Show in Monterey Jack's "Pira Revelare" (pear revealed) was awarded a third place ribbon in the sculpture category. More pleasing to Jack than the ribbon was the fact that there were far more than three entries in that category.

Jack's work is currently shown at "HandWorks" in Danville, "Gallery El Dorado" in El Dorado, "Gold Country Artists Gallery" in Placerville, and "Hang It Up Gallery" in El Dorado Hills. His work can also be viewed at his web sites: www.JacksBowls.com and www.PokerChipRacks.net.

Jack's most important lesson to date?: "Don't quit your day job."

March / April 2005