Tom Mills

Location: Fort Collins, Colorado
Creates: wood boxes, trays, boards and coasters
Member since: 2017

Tom is a forester, and worked his whole professional career for the USDA Forest Service, including some time here in Fort Collins. His forestry training introduced him to the beauty of wood and the amazing process of tree growth, so his wood working is a natural outgrowth of that early introduction. Since his professional work years were all in an office rather than the woods, doing his wood working now is like living a whole different life.

Tom’s favorite thing about being an artist is creating something that brings the beauty of the wood into everyday use, and the ability to hold the resulting creation in his hands. He loves the variety of colors and grain patterns in wood, even variations within the same species or those made by how the board was cut from the log. Tom believes that Mother Nature is a special and talented artist. How trees grow is close to a mystery, and the resulting wood is a thing of beauty.