Costa Rica Today, April 29, 1993, page 8 

Biesanz: A Master Craftsman in Wood

Some artisans use materials to show off their skills. But with Barry Biesanz’ beautiful wooden objects, the medium is the message.  

By Sorrel Downer 

Walk into a crafts shop and you’ll gravitate towards them – beautiful to look at and wonderful to hold, there is something very special about Barry Biesanz’ wooden bowls and boxes.  

It’s not only the obvious pleasure that has gone into their making, but the wood itself. Unlike most craftsmen who use a medium to draw attention to their skills, Biesanz’ objective is “to create a style that is unique and beautifully made and yet simple enough to allow the wood to be the highlight of the box.” 

Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Ronald Reagan all have one of his cleverly made continuous grain boxes (Ronald’s was a gift from George Shultz) and the Queen of Spain is the proud owner of a deep green lignum vitae bowl.  

In the Biesanz Woodworks showroom in Bello Horizonte there are bowls that glow like tiger’s eye, smooth warm boxes made of purpleheart, boxes that smell of spice and gold colored bowls, so fine they are translucent and glow when they are held up to the light.  

He brings out the characteristics of each piece of wood and also makes a feature of its faults, often leaving the edges of bowls unfinished and using knots and holes as part of the design of a lid. Apparently the stores have stopped calling to complain now.  “But they’d phone” said Biesanz, “and say they wanted money off a box because it had a hole in it — like I hadn’t noticed! 

His work continues to set standards for Costa Rican woodwork.  When he first took a selection of bowls to a store, he insisted that they were put on a separate table. 

“The rest of the stuff was not up to standard.  I know — I’m a snob. But if you’d seen it!” 

Suppliers saw that I was charging much more for my work and wanted the same so the shop owners told them to improve their quality and they went back and did that.  

For some reason Tico artisans got the idea that more finish is good.  If rustic is no finish at all, then high class must be real shiny.  Soon they were sanding things a little longer and putting on more of a matte finish.  Then after a while a few timid attempts at creativity popped up.  Now there is some very good work.” 

Biesanz Woodworks was founded 17 years ago.  He was tired of life in the real estate business and looking for something more fulfilling to take on as a challenge, a learning experience.  

After an apprenticeship — “eight months of sanding” — and the careful study of back issues of Fine Woodworking magazine, Biesanz was ready to start on his own.  

“Some people thought I had no skill with wood at all.  I made a pact to give it everything I had, and if it didn’t work out, well, I’d still be in a better position for having tried.” 

I don’t know how he did selling houses, but watching Biesanz turn a bowl it’s clear that he finds it hugely satisfying work.  From a lump of rough wood a thing of beauty emerges, all fine curves and waves of colors.  

He started with commissions for furniture — “Chinese Shaker, yuppie shaker,” he laughed, flicking through a photo album showing pieces in just about every style.  “Drop leaf table — that’s in the US embassy, chair, desk — every joint in there is a dovetail.” 

Eventually he began concentrating on boxes and bowls.  Everything is going so well now that even with 19 employees, a couple of apprentices and his daughter on quality control, he can barely keep up with demand.  

“I used to practice saying ‘Sorry, there’s a waiting list’ long before there was.  Now we are so busy I’ve had to quit taking commissions.  

“Friends have been asking me, ‘how much longer do you think you will be able to work wood?  Aren’t you afraid you are about to run out? But that’s never been a remote possibility.  For small scale intensive craft work we can live off the scraps. 

And so he does, using dead or fallen logs that are going to waste and trees that would have been felling anyway to make room for new houses.  Whenever possible, he buys direct from small farmers, encouraging them to bring him fallen trees. 

There’s little in Costa Rican lumber markets that Biesanz would be interested in anyway.  

“There are 1,500 species here but Ticos tend to be very conservative and conformist, using the same five or so woods for building because it’s traditional to use them,” Biesanz said.  

They got it into their heads years ago that pochote is the wood to use for doors and window frames.  Now every architect specifies it, the trees are getting scarce and the price is rising.  There is a lot of good wood that could be used instead but the market just won’t pay for it.  

Someone wanted me to sell his wood from the Osa Peninsula.  He’d got a permit to cut trees down for strip mining, to make a moon landscape out of this particular area, and these guys had offered to remove them for him.  They thought there would be money in it.  But only some of the trees were worth the price of shipping.”  So they were left to rot and more trees were felled unnecessarily.  

Even Satinwood, a native wood which was used in some of the finest examples of English cabinet making, isn’t brought to market anymore.  Biesanz has a stock of it that was found as charred logs in a field.  

He’s keen to experiment and work with seldom used woods like Marfil, Antisco, Lacewood, and the bright yellow Mora. There are some logs lying around his workshop he hasn’t been able to identify. 

“Look out here,” he said. I’m finding more and more fine woods from harvesting fallen woods right here in Escazú. There are lots of species around us and your guess would be as good as mine as to how they’d turn out.  Most are short and gnarly, but so are some of the best woods in the world.  You can’t get a decent two by four out of them, but the grain is just … Wow!” 

As well as using dead, felled, wasted native trees that no one else is interested in, Biesanz Woodworks has initiated a non-profit program to replant unusual and endangered native trees. It’s a fresh variation on the usual reforestation theme which involves planting the faster growing non-native species. 

And instead of planting in a concentrated area, Biesanz plans to spread the seeds and saplings grown in their nursery around. 

Since 1989 he’s handed out 3,000 saplings a year to people all over the country, thereby effecting a more natural dispersal. outside the Biesanz house there’ guapinol, soapseed, and a row of tubus saplings, grown from seeds collected in Santa Ana.  

They’ll be replanted around Escazú, where the tubus tree was virtually wiped out because of its quality as firewood. 

You can help by collecting seeds.  Don’t feel you have to be an expert — everyone is just beginning to learn about native trees. You need to find fresh, viable seeds from species with one or more of the following characteristics: Native Costa Rican tree; scarcity due to heavy logging or slow growth; hard, heavy woods with beautiful grain suitable for craft work; leguminous trees that improve the quality of the soil by fixing nitrogen; plants and trees that provide food or shelter for wildlife.  

Biesanz Woodworks will buy them from you.  And they will also give you help and information if you are keen on reforesting an area with native trees. 

“We feel that the modern craft movement is in a sense a precursor to the environmental movement,” they say in an environmental statement.  Both seek a more balanced, sane way of life, with natural values predominating. 

“Fine crafts are certainly not a part of a disposable culture. We try to create pieces that will last for generations, statements to the beauty and value of these precious woods.” And they do.