Creating art and community through woodworking
BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — “Got Jesus LaFayette?” LaFayette local Daniel Ray placed the large sign by the road in his front yard on the edge of the LaFayette Square. The sign is the result of years of woodworking and the development of a creative talent that is now a growing business.
“I picked Easter weekend, and I put the sign up on a Friday and it was done by Sunday,” he said.
“What’s blown my mind is there have been a number of neighbors that I didn’t know, and never talked to, and they stopped in the middle of the road and said, ‘I really like your sign,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s awesome, we should have talked to each other a long time ago.’ So, the sign has helped me meet my neighbors.”
Ray said he first tried woodworking when his dad purchased him a children’s woodworking kit as a child he played with religiously and used to make his own toys. When Ray and his wife purchased their home, he said woodworking started as a way to fill the space and grew into an entrepreneurial journey.
“We got a house, but we had no furniture, so I was able to scrape up enough money to buy basic woodworking tools, it came back to me and I started building stuff,” he said. “Then my wife was like, ‘I love that, that’s beautiful,’ and I said, ‘Good, because I just sold it, so we can eat,’ so every time she would get to like it, a piece of furniture, I’d sell it, and it would move on.”
When he begins his woodworking every day, he said he is often overwhelmed by all of the inspiration and ideas he has.
“Sometimes you have a paralysis that can come over you, so I get up in the morning, I’m like, ‘God, I can literally make anything,’” Ray said. “I only have so much money, so I have to make something that hopefully will sell, or else I end up with all my money locked up in inventory, and my wife says I can’t buy anything anymore. I wanted to do something really nice for LaFayette, so I put a ‘Got Jesus? LaFayette’ sign out, and I thought that was kind of cool.”
Ray said when creating something new with wood, he enjoys seeing a piece of wood that is the result of a tree’s growth over decades transform into art.
“Sometimes when I look at all the tree lines, I’m like, ‘This one’s more than 100 years old, and I am manipulating it and giving something to someone I’ve made out of the wood,’” he said. “This thing could probably last longer than I’m probably going to. The thought that the things I create will last longer than me is kind of what inspires me.”
As he grows his business and creates woodworking art, Ray said he enjoys using secondhand material.
“Working with limited funds forces you to be creative, and I absolutely love going to thrift stores,” he said. “I’m 6 foot 7, and I love buying suits from thrift stores. I’ve been into buying tables from the thrift store here recently. I like to just buy a cheap table, take the legs off it, put it on the CNC machine and carve something into it. I’ve also been doing a lot of religious stuff recently.”
Ray said he is thankful for the support he has received in LaFayette and the community that has welcomed him.
“I literally could not make it if I didn’t have the support I have,” he said. “The biggest support I’ve gotten is from LaFayette First Baptist, my community that I go to church with. So many things are word of mouth; the people I go to church with are like, ‘Yeah, I go to church with this guy, I feel like he’s trustworthy, I vouch for him,’ and then I do that job. I would have never gotten any of that if it wasn’t for some of the people who have been here.”
Ray can be contacted for woodworking services at (256) 269-8123.
