Stephen Mohring is a professor of sculpture and woodworking whose relationship with the Arboretum has arisen primarily through woodworking classes and the college sawmill program. He began using wood from the Arb as early as 2002, and acquired Carleton’s first sawmill in 2006. Much of the wood for both his own projects and student work comes directly from the Arboretum. After a tree is felled, the wood is cut and dried (for about 2-3 years outside, and another season inside) on-site at the college sawmill. Professor Mohring says “this is not a program that exists anywhere else that we know of.” The close relationship between the Arboretum, the sawmill program, and woodworking classes, provides a quality and character of wood that is difficult to obtain elsewhere. Wood milled through the Carleton sawmill program, unlike manufactured wood, maintains the unique traits distinctive to a particular piece of wood. This is something that “you just don’t get, ever” says Mohring, though here at Carleton, you do.
Nearly every part of the wood coming from the Arb has a use. Large, regular pieces are slabbed and dried to be used for table making or other large-scale projects, but irregular pieces can be saved and used for more freeform art. Even cracked or rotten wood has a use–it can fuel the wood kiln that some students and faculty use to fire ceramics. Table Making and Advanced Sculpture II both utilize wood from the Arb, and Mohring’s own work generally is mixed media with an emphasis on the wood components. He recently had an exhibit at Hamlin, with metal tables and legs hand-carved from Arb wood.