Vaughn Phillips- Driftwood Creations

Vaughn Phillips has been an avid fisherman for a number of years and after catching a walleye that he needed a mount for he had the idea to create one out of driftwood. That marked the beginning of his driftwood creations where he uses driftwood pulled from the river to create a number of items. Creating lamps and picture frames from driftwood has been a hobby of his that includes going out to look for the pieces of driftwood either on the shoreline or by boat in the river. Vaughn then lets the wood dry in this workshop and he waits for inspiration to hit when deciding what to make out of the wood.

The process to create lamps and other household decorative items involves cleaning the wood once it is dry, adding three coats of varnish and running wire through the wood. Vaughn explained that running the wire is the most difficult part of creating the lamps, it is difficult to identify what path the wire will run and how to camouflage it where the limps are gnarled.

Out of all the driftwood that Vaughn has pulled to shore the largest piece had been 8-feet wide and 5-feet tall weighing between 250-300lbs. That piece took a lot of work to bring it in and then he cut it up and made 3 lamps out of it.

The mirrors and picture frames that Vaughn creates involves sorting through the smaller branches that have a lot of character to them. The oval mirrors that he frames with the small branches are tricky; as he has to find branches that have a bend in them.

Vaughn has been working on creating a lot of driftwood creations and they will be available at this weekends’ Studio Tour. He will have a range of items at various prices to fit your budget. Vaughn is also taking orders for Christmas gifts and in case you aren’t able to make it to the Studio Tour then you can reach him at 518-358-2819 to place your order.