Marian Yasuda carves out
By Leila Fujimori
a spot in the mostly male stronghold
of woodworking
Star-BulletinIN an Iwilei workshop, a figure wearing a spacesuit-like helmet and tank top revealing well-defined biceps is running a heavy koa board through a flying saw blade to slice the wood into sheets, in the long process of transforming ordinary-looking lumber into extraordinary works of art.
The artist is Marian Yasuda. On one afternoon, the diminutive artist had several projects going at once. She was sanding a rounded-front eucalyptus wall cabinet in which a bowl-turner's work will be displayed. A long, waist-high birdseye maple and metal-accented cabinet awaited glass doors. And Yasuda unrolled a full size pencil illustration of a 9-foot koa sleigh bed with a camphor burl veneer headboard -- her sole entry in the Hawaii Forest Industry Association 7th annual Wood Show, running Sept. 4 through 12 at the Aloha Tower Marketplace.
Featured will be more than 100 works by 56 of Hawaii's woodworkers. Items range from bowls to musical instruments to a 6-foot rocking horse crafted of 18 different woods.
The 39-year-old Yasuda has pushed to the forefront of Hawaii's highly competitive, mostly male, woodworking professionals. As owner and operator of Yasuda Designs in Wood, she creates quality furniture with distinctive contemporary details. Her pieces have taken top honors in local and mainland shows, claimed spots in prestigious national woodworking magazines and command luxury asking prices of up to $22,000.
And like a Renaissance artist, her work is commissioned by modern-day Medicis, patrons of the arts, so each piece is one-of-a-kind. This leaves little time for speculative pieces. Even her HFIA show entry, a koa sleigh bed, is commissioned.Yasuda's background in design is reflected in her work. Unlike many woodworkers who take off on traditional styles, "Marian has some very unusual pieces both in her choice of wood and her artistic design," notes Andrea Beck, HFIA executive director.
"I started developing my own style using more veneer, getting creative with shape and curve and line," Yasuda said. Her attraction to the Art Deco period shows in her work, described by others as sophisticated and graceful.
Linda Butts, HFIA show coordinator, marvels at Yasuda's ability to combine different mediums, such as glass and metal, with wood.Unlike many of her male counterparts, Yasuda signed up for home economics, not woodshop, as a student at Punahou. She later enrolled as a design student at the University of Hawai'i and was heading toward an advertising career, but she balked at the competitiveness and pressures of the business. She discovered an alternative while attending the State University of New York, College of Buffalo as an exchange student.
A 21, she learned traditional woodworking methods such as cutting joints using only hand tools. The medium lent itself well to her talent for three-dimensional visualization.
She started making simple boxes, learning skills by watching other woodworkers and reading books and magazines. She still recalls a gluing error that cost her a tabletop.
Back in Hawaii, she got a part-time job in a cabinet shop using power tools to crank out cabinets while finishing her senior year.
"Most people don't have the luxury of making a profit at traditional woodworking," Yasuda said. So she learned to make things faster, but held on to many of the traditional techniques. She still hand-cuts dovetail joints, but charges a premium for them. She gives clients the option to cut labor costs with machine-cut joints.
Anyone who knows Yasuda the athlete will tell you she has discipline. She's run 15 marathons, paddled the Molokai Channel and been rock climbing in California.
"She's conscientious in whatever she does," Colleen Chun said of her three-time a week, early morning weight-lifting partner. Yasuda runs on three other days, once a week on Tantalus.Yasuda starts work every day at 5:45 a.m., saying, "I'm afraid if I sleep in, I'll never go to work."
She puts in 65- to 70-hour weeks, working alone, relying on the strength of her 5-foot frame, and resourcefulness, to move some of the larger pieces. She gets some help from her husband Neal on weekends, who helps with deliveries, sanding and finishing.
"You have to oil, sand, oil, sand. It's not just building the piece. So it takes weeks," Neal said. "To do quality work, you can never charge enough."
He said his wife takes a lot of time to match wood and grain in these one-of-a-kind pieces. "She's had problems when what she visualizes in her head doesn't always come out easily," Neal said. That's because she designs aesthetically first; the how-to is figured out later."
While working for others, Yasuda often found herself overlooked. "People assumed I was the wife or daughter of the owner," she said. "The thing that used to bug me was that people thought I didn't know what I was talking about."
She'd hear them asking the owner the same questions she had answered moments earlier.
She still gets calls asking for the owner. Now she answers, "I'm the owner," only to get the question, "Well who makes the stuff?"
"For the most part, being a woman has been an asset," Yasuda said. People remember her. Men help her carry lumber. And male woodworkers let down their guard and share information they often don't with each other.
"I was surprised that such a little person could do such heavy work," remarked one client.
Chun recalls a time Yasuda stood elegantly dressed at the opening of a show, when suddenly a backboard started falling. "Marian busted out her drill" and started fixing it, to the surprise of onlookers, Chun related.
But Yasuda faced the same kinds of pressures as the men when she went into business for herself in 1987, a move Neal says took guts. "You have to have confidence because your name is on the line," he said.Although Neal pays the mortgage, he insists "the business has to be able to support itself."
Fellow woodworker Ricardo Dellera, who started his business on credit cards, knows. "Woodworking is difficult unless you're good and have your own design," he said. "Marian has her own style, very individualistic. Her cabinets are very non-traditional."
For the first three years in business, Yasuda produced three futon beds a week for Oriental Bedding. When the company went out of business, it was a blessing in disguise. Yasuda developed her own style as a fine furniture maker. She sold pieces to galleries and her reputation grew. Now everything is commissioned.
One Hawaii Kai couple, whose Asian-Pacific-themed home was featured in Honolulu magazine's March issue, asked Yasuda to create a koa dining set. "We were thrilled with her work," said the wife. She found Yasuda down-to-earth, "not the temperamental artist type."
Yasuda says she finds herself patient in woodworking, though not in other things. And people describe her as even-tempered and not one to get upset. That was tested and proven when she and her husband worked for months renovating their home.
"It started with a leaky pipe," she said. It ended with the couple and some friends turning their 760-square-foot Palolo home into a 2100-square-foot showcase for her skills. The project was a finalist for TV's "This Old House."
Koa and glass bifold doors open out to a balcony that overlooks the valley, a maple and glass railing for the stairway, and an expanse of blonde birdseye maple floors and kitchen cabinets. But because they did the work themselves, the couple slept for months in a tent with only one wall of the house standing.
Yasuda will turn 40 next year and looks forward to it. "It'll put me in another age group," she said, an advantage in running marathons.
Hawai'i Forest Industry Association's seventh annual Wood Show features 100 works handcrafted by 56 of Hawaii's finest woodworkers: NA LA'AU O HAWAI'I
On exhibit: Pier 10, Aloha Tower Marketplace
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