BY ALDONA BIRD
Marke Walawander worked in a Waynesburg, Pa., coal mine for decades before retiring seven years ago. Always interested in woodworking and furniture refurbishing, after retirement Marke decided to delve more deeply into this hobby.
He started making cutting and charcuterie boards. “My family said, ‘why don’t you sell these’ and I said ‘aww get outta here,’ ” Marke told me. But he took his family’s advice and set up a booth at a small local market with some higher-end products he’d made. He sold out within three hours.
I saw his work at the Mylan Park craft show last month. Marke’s display included unusually shaped and patterned boards, which caught my eye.
“I found just a real good market for it,” he said, adding, “I’ve developed a lot of clientele who come for wedding gifts, birthday gifts.”
Each of his boards is totally handmade — no laser cutting — mostly from repurposed, locally (Greene County, Pa., and northern West Virginia) sourced wood. “Right now I’m into a lot of repurposed oak from wine barrels,” Marke said.
The only non-local woods he uses are exotic varieties. Marke said he sometimes uses small amounts of exotic wood in pieces he brings to shows. Sometimes these small bits stand out to customers, and they ask Marke to make custom orders with exotic wood, at a higher price point.
Otherwise, he uses local hardwoods that he buys as rough-cut lumber. Marke said lately he has also been using old barn wood to make rustic boards. Despite these boards being harder to clean if used to serve soft foods (due to grooves in the wood) he said they have been very popular.
Other popular products include cheese boards with slots cut for carrying wine glasses, and pizza peels, which Marke makes in a variety of sizes, weights and handle lengths.
In addition to making products from scratch, Marke said he also refurbishes boards — mentioning a customer who brought him a cutting board to refurbish, which an immigrant grandparent had brought via boat from Italy.
His favorite pieces to make are charcuterie boards with three dimensional patterns.
“I’ll show a picture of one to someone, and they’ll say ‘that isn’t flat,’” Marke said. “It’s a lot of figuring out angles; if one angle is off, the whole board is off.”
Marke cuts these angled wood pieces out of variously colored wood to create optical illusions. When viewed from different angles these boards look different, and they don’t appear flat. Due to the time it takes to lay out these patterns and create the boards, Marke charges more for them, and so they don’t make up the bulk of his stock.
“Every one is handmade, I don’t work on multiple boards at one time,” he said.
Marke also makes boards with simpler patterns. He starts with an idea and drawing, then cuts and planes the wood. To some he adds juice grooves, handles, spots for ramekins to safely sit and rubber feet. He finishes by sanding to a smooth finish and adding food grade mineral oil and beeswax. Marke advises customers to upkeep his boards with food grade mineral oil.
Cutting and serving boards needs vary depending on uses, so Marke said he makes custom boards for customers from home cooks to restaurant owners and chefs.
“Every board I make is different from the other ones,” Marke said. You can find his work on his Facebook page MW Handcrafted, at a craft show at the EQT center in Waynesburg in July and at other local shows.
ALDONA BIRD is a journalist, exploring possibilities of local productivity and sustainable living in Preston County.
