I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I’ve worked in factories, pizza restaurants, I’ve driven every kind of truck you can imagine. I’ve been virtually everything and virtually everywhere.

 

In my high School years I loved art. All mediums. I excelled in art through those years. Friends and relatives were great sources of encouragement to pursue art as a career. At the age of 19, I was working as a graphic artist designing artwork for a major designer jeans company. My immaturity and ego led to my unemployment at age 20. Married at 21. Father of two at 23. Art faded away and life took over.

 

During the summer of 2001 I met Jonnie. The most amazing woman alive. She’s my soul-mate, my friend, my personal comedian and my mentor all rolled into one perfect package. Her energy is infectious and her love of nature, pure. She is my inspiration on so many levels and a true artist as well as a visionary. It is her vision that makes Newmac Northwest possible.

 

                                                      Bill Newcomb

 

 

If you came to our house you would see the influence of driftwood, literally everywhere. From the arch in the front garden to the piles in the shop. Then you might notice you were wading through a sea of curious animals. Dogs, cats, ferrets, birds, rats and multiple aquariums. They also just seem to be everywhere. Together, Bill and I seem to have a "calling" to drag home almost anything  abandoned or displaced. From our driftwood, our plants, rocks, pets and odds and ends to numerous to mention. Our life is a menagerie of outcasts.

 

Creating our wild horse sculptures, birdhouses, oceanic arrangements and arches or just sitting fabulous pieces of driftwood in the flower bed, we love what we do. We love being together, hunting for that perfect piece of wood to complete a wind-blown mane or forelock. We walk the beaches, wind, rain and shine. Even as I write this, and fall grows  near, creeping into shorter days and colder nights, we  are excited like two kids on Christmas Eve.  Because we know soon, when the wind starts to howl and the heavens open, that the rivers will run wild again.  Waves will crash and the driftwood will be tossed upon the sand to our waiting hands. We call this season "the time of our special delivery". Barren stretches of sand with crumbled, blackened fire pits are transformed into  mountains of sticks that seem to be the result of some strange nautical Armageddon.   I know that soon I will find myself trodding on cold, damp sand with wind and rain stinging my eyes. I will see a piece of wood that will call to me. I will shrug off my already heavy backpack and bend to pick up yet one more perfect piece of driftwood. I will look over to the water to see Bill at the pounding edge of the surf bending to see what the last wave has brought him. A shiny amber agate, a shell or a tiny piece of driftwood. We will be there. Life is good.  

 

My love of nature and creativity I credit mostly to my Native American heritage. I have never taken the fact of my heritage lightly, although I do not beat drums or wear feathers in my hair, I am no doubt very much the Indian on the inside. My father was  half Cherokee half Chickasaw.

 

I have worked in numerous mediums. Pencil, water colors, ink, leather, beads, clay etc. But always, I seem drawn back to driftwood when I need somewhere to light and feel at home.

I have always had an artistic and almost spiritual interest in wood and creating with wood. Or at times, just letting myself be directed by the wood itself to manifest and become what it will. When I discovered my love of driftwood, I felt a sense of coming home to stay. Finally.

 

                                                    Jonnie Mack