TAI Slide Show - I69 Heritage Corridor

James Adkins -- Woodworker, intarsia

James Adkins is an accomplished intarsia and wood cabinet maker. He grew up and lived most of his life around Marion. He has a degree in commercial art, but never found a job in that field that would satisfy him financially and otherwise. He became a millwright, maintaining and installing equipment for the big companies.

Woodworking and intarsia became a hobby that James learned to love. He has worked with wood ever since childhood, but nobody in his family has ever been an active woodworker.

He makes his own patterns by drawing freehand from photographs onto cardboard stock. He enjoys wildlife and has made intarsia pieces representing most every species of wildlife he knows.

By recycling old material, James uses his creativity and imagination in creating wooden mosaics and intarsia "paintings." He took some weathered wooden boards from an old barn that lay almost in ruins, and created various pictures from the different colored boards. Depending on which direction that side of the barn had faced, the wood had different colors -- the north side, for example, was greener, because that’s where it had become mossy.

James is always looking for ways to earn some money from his hobby and from other work, though he has given away much of his work as gifts. He says it’s a good way to make friends and keep friends.

Hear James:

Tell a story about giving one of his intarsia pieces to the White House Listen to James story

(transcript)

Talk about enjoying his craft Listen to James story