By Ken Mammarella
Contributing Writer

Mike Altman grew up in a family of makers, and he began working with wood as a kid, making a pair of stilts (for “the challenge”) and a wooden safe (“to keep things away from my older brother”).

“After college, I started building furniture – bookshelves, beds, tables, that sort of thing, driven by my own personal needs,” the New Garden Township resident recalled. “I made a handful of things for some friends – a bed, a porch rocker, some cabinets.” But it was still just a casual hobby.

Then early in the pandemic, with lots of time at home, he saw an article in Fine Woodworking about a piece of furniture featuring kumiko, a technique, begun a millennium ago in Japan, in which thin wooden pieces are carefully assembled into intricate patterns, often without nails or glue.

“I just became curious, and I tried to do some myself,” he said. “I wasn’t very good to begin with, so I took a class at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.” His skills grew with more lessons, a scouting trip to Japan and a lot of effort (he devotes eight to 10 hours a week in his basement wood shop).

“Once I started doing kumiko, I stopped doing almost done any other traditional woodworking. I wasn’t necessarily starting out to make art, but I was just interested in the style,” he said.

“The beauty, technical challenge and tradition have made it a primary focus of my work,” he wrote on his site, www.timbersaga.com. He also sells works on Etsy and at fine-arts festivals. His pieces start at $75 and can top $1,000.

Scouting kumiko in Japan

Altman is a Coatesville native with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business administration. He has worked for Gore since 1996, now focused on sustainability. His first two trips to Japan were for work. The third was a vacation with a kumiko accent. 

“I kept my eyes open, because I wanted to see kumiko in its natural habitat,” he said. “And I saw a lot. The airport. Restaurants. Doorways we saw walking down the street. And there was this shop in Tokyo with a whole section on kumiko and its architectural features in doors, screens and dividers.”

Traditional kumiko includes dozens of designs, most inspired by nature and offering good omens.

In his work, Altman limits himself to solid wood, mostly sourced from Hearne Hardwoods in Oxford (huge selection, sustainably harvested), with his favorite being Alaskan yellow cedar for its pale color, straight, sometimes-unnoticeable grain and ease of working with. His second favorite is walnut, which offers a nice color contrast to the cedar.

He uses power tools to cut the wood into standard pieces, 3.1 to 3.3 millimeters thick (the width of his jigsaw blade) and 11.8 millimeters wide (it just feels right). 

Precise cuts, intricate designs

After that, he relies mostly upon hand tools made in America and Japan – planes (kanna), chisels (nomi), hammers (genno) and saws (dozuki) – to precisely trim the pieces, create interlocking notches and form ends tapering at the right angle, with a V-shaped point or a point with an inverted V. People often ask if his work is laser-cut, a question that he now considers to be a compliment.

He sells his work as art, with a distinct dimensionality, to hang on the wall. So he names them: “Cascade,” “Eclipse,” “Energy” and “Sakura” (which means “cherry blossom”). Some pieces look like trivets, but the wood is too soft for that. Ones that look like snowflakes can decorate a Christmas tree.

As he grows more experienced with kumiko, he has been incorporating more woods, becoming more creative in his designs and using more challenging patterns involving as many as 700 pieces. “Almost all of my work is one-off, in terms of design,” he said. “I like creating something new and mastering something that I’ve never done.”

“We were really excited to showcase Michael’s work because it’s so different from anything we’ve featured before,” said Victoria Abadir, founder of the Lancaster Art Vault, which displayed his works for two months earlier this year.

“The craftsmanship and the uniqueness of the Japanese kumiko technique immediately stood out to us. Each piece is so precise and beautifully made – you can truly see the care and intention behind it. The response from our guests has been overwhelmingly positive. People are drawn to the intricate patterns, the natural wood tones and the elegance of each piece. It’s clear that Michael brings a deep respect for the material and tradition to everything he creates, and we’re honored to share his work with our community.”