Third-generation woodworker Perry Shaw treks daily through the dense, well-trod forests of the Pacific Northwest, often shadowed by his two sons or his dog. As the afternoon sun trickles through the canopy, Shaw scans for fallen trees, craggy and marked by blight.

As he searches, he wonders what words the trees would murmur if they could: of their age and provenance; of what they weathered; of how they fell or were felled. He asks them how he might tell their tale once more, presses them for the stories of their cracks and fissures. 

“The knots and lumps and burly bits that suggest life wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good regardless,” says Shaw. “It is the challenge of revealing this part of a tree’s story that brings me back to the lathe time and time again.” 

Watch the film “The Tree Biographer” to join Shaw as he collaborates and gives second life to well-lived trees.