About Laël Gordon — Cabinetmaker & Fine Woodworker

The son of a shipwright, I grew up on the coast of southcentral Alaska, where my dad worked maintaining an aging fleet of wooden work boats. I still remember watching him saw Douglas fir timbers into planking on a massive, hundred-year-old bandsaw, then steam-bend them into place.

From childhood, I loved building things with my hands, and I refined those skills in 2007, spending a year at Inside Passage School of Fine Cabinetmaking, learning in the tradition of James Krenov. In the years that followed, I chose not to start a furniture-making business, knowing it would mean giving up what I loved most about woodworking: innovation—treating each project as an extended experiment and pushing forward the creative possibilities of wood. Instead, I balanced woodworking with family life and a job teaching math, using evenings, weekends, and summers to explore and innovate in the shop.

As I enter my third decade in the craft, I've moved on from teaching, my son is now school age, and I'm dedicating more time to woodworking. My work pairs the innovative techniques I've developed through years of experimentation—like dynamic patterns—with time-honored methods like solid wood joinery and saw-cut veneer. I blend craft with artistry, creating designs that are unordinary yet grounded in functionality and built to last for many generations.

Though many years have passed since a childhood spent watching my dad replank wooden boats, and my bandsaw is smaller, Douglas fir remains one of my favorite materials to work with.

If you like what you see here, get in touch. I'd love to build something for your own home.