("All About You" by Basic Comfort plays) Celebrating vibrant people.

captivating places and remarkable things.

This is Living West Michigan.

♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ Everything that ♪ ♪ you say and do ♪ ♪ Show me your world ♪ ♪ Everything that ♪ ♪ you say and do ♪ ♪ you say to me ♪ ♪ Can’t get enough ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ This program is supported in part by an award from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, and is also powered by you and your dedicated support.

Thank you.

("Rest" by Basic Comfort plays) (Rock music) Tell me, you know how it all started?

So the company was actually started in 1906 by the Fuller family in Muskegon, and then my great grandfather started in the original wooden shoe factory here in Holland in 1926.

At that point, we connected with the Fuller family, who started the bowl mill.

We started to sell their bowls throughout the wooden shoe factory in our different shop.

We continued to do that for the next 60 years or so, and then Vic Foehler contacted my dad.

Said they were looking to sell the bowl mill.

We purchased it, moved it behind the wooden shoe factory.

We operated there till 1998.

We moved the bowl mill to this location that we’re at, 120 James Street, opened our doors here in 2001.

We’re now the largest manufacturer of solid wooden bowls in the world.

Made 800 to 1,000 bowls a week.

Our products are carried in around 350 stores across the United States.

Wow.

So what does it mean to you, then, to be, you know, a part of a fourth generation family business?

It’s incredible.

We’re so blessed.

It’s so fun.

My dad still comes in every day.

He’s 75 years old.

He’s still in nine to one.

My mom’s in a lot.

My sisters, also part of the company, too.

I have three boys, Davey Dawson and Rowan.

Hopefully, one day, they’ll show some interest in becoming that pitch generation.

We have 22 employees.

They’re like family to us.

It’s just so fun to build a work with my dad, my sister, and build something that’s just so special and unique.

You can’t see what we’re doing here anywhere else in the United States or even the world.

It’s so fun that we let people come into our doors.

They can go back.

They can watch the whole process really get a good understanding of what goes in to making all of our products.

How did you get into woodworking?

What brought you here?

So I grew up in woodworking on the other side of the state, started sweeping floors when I was 12 years old, or younger.

We moved here in 2010, and met Kori and Dave, and they offered me a job here, and started way up front, wiping bowls, sanding bowls, and then started the process back here.

There’s a lot of work that goes into it.

I know, you know, you see some of the equipment and stuff, and it’s not on a traditional wood lake.

Well, we’re the only one in the world that has a lathe like that.

And when you can produce, you know, roughly 1,200, 1,400 bowls a week to get that many bowls produced is pretty unique.

So how much of that process, I guess, is still reliant on, you know, like, handmade craftsmanship versus automation.

Pretty much everything, you know?

I mean, we’ve taken some of the old technology that the gentleman that trained me.

He’d been here, you know, making wooden shoes, and then they started making the bowls, and so learning from him, and then taking some of that technology, and trying different things.

Every day, we’re trying different things.

We mocked up a new knife just the other day.

We can produce, you know, it’s about three minutes from start to finish.

Once we load that 15 inch block to the very end to that 9.

Is it handmade?

Yes, it is, but every day we’re trying something different to help the process with the equipment that we have.

(Guitar) So I want to really talk about sustainability, because you guys are big on that here.

What is your sustainability approach?

Yeah, kind of starts with how we get our raw material.

So we work with local tree services and mills that we are getting our logs from.

We’re not going out looking to take down trees.

Every tree log that comes in is coming down naturally, due to storms or safety issues.

Not one part of that tree ends up in the landfill, down to shavings, go through a conveyor system.

We donate those to local horse farms, access wood that can’t be made into the bowls, is made into cutting boards, utensils, candle holders, trees.

We give our employees a lot of creative freedom, to kind of think outside the box.

A lot of people look at an excess piece of wood, like, oh, that’s firewood.

Not to us.

Maybe a crack happened, and that’s part of the wood process, you know?

It dries, and it might crack, but maybe someone up front makes the heart shape.

That’s how we get those.

Or maybe there’s a big knot in it, and it has a really neat grain around it, but maybe we drill it out and make the fruit bowls.

So, again, try to use up all the log that we bring in, but then once we make it, and something happens in the drying process, or something like that, what can we do to that to salvage it?

So I think that’s the biggest thing, is just the teamwork for the whole building and the whole Holland bowl mill to work, and that’s Kori and Dave pushing that through.

you know?

(Fun music) We pride ourselves a lot on what we do, you know, we’re the largest wooden bowl manufacturing in the United States, and sometimes I think, you know, you walk in here, and you’re, like, uh, it’s a job or whatever, and that’s not really the case every day, you’re thinking, oh, gosh, what can I make today?

And then, again, being part of the Holland community.

I think if we were in another city, we might have not lasted this long, but Holland is such a supporting town.

We have so many locals who, every time they need a wedding gift, Every time they need an anniversary birthday gift, where their go to stop.

So I think that plays a huge factor, and just my my dad, my great grandfather, everything that they built, for me to kind of step into, my goal is just to continue doing what they did such a good job.

These are truly heirloom pieces that are gonna be passed down generation to generations.

They say, You came in and got a bold.

You’re gonna build to cherish that.

It’s gonna become the centerpiece of your entertaining.

And then one day, you’re gonna be able to pass that on to the next generation.

(Electric guitar) (Charming music) Miniatures Museum.

This place is absolutely amazing.

Let’s just start with how did this come to be?

The museum was founded in 2009, and it was originally located in Hickory Corners, the founder of the museum passed in 2012, and she left a sizable donation that her mandate was to go find your own location, and, you know, have your own solo museum.

So in 2019, we bought the Robbins house here in Grand Haven and started the move out here, got the exhibits fabricated by professional studios that have done an excellent, excellent job.

So I brag on how this place looks, because I’m not the one that can take credit for how fantastic so much of it looks.

So they did a really excellent job with this first floor, and then we’ve just opened the second floor for the first time since we’ve been around.

And let’s talk about what’s in a lot of the pieces here.

The majority are literally tiny miniature pieces of furniture, chandeliers, chess sets.

How is that impossible?

I mean, it just, it just kind of blows your mind to think of it when you see it in person.

Great miniaturists are also great mathematicians and engineers, because what you have to do to be able to scale something down and do it to such precise detail is a lot of really good math and engineering to get it right.

And the highest forms of miniaturism are getting it right at much smaller scales.

(Piano) I’ve been doing it for 46 years, just in miniatures, and I was a full size, I mean, a normal pottery for that.

When I went through college and graduated with an art degree, I really wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do, but I ended up getting a job as a full time potter for Sauder Museum in Archibold, Ohio.

At that point in my life, I hadn’t really had no awareness of miniatures.

I didn’t grow up with a dollhouse.

I didn’t know there was this other world out there.

But I sort of came around to wanting to make a souvenir item for the school kids.

And that’s really how it all started.

I think I have fun trying new things that keeps me from getting bored.

So I switch around.

But I love the work that I do.

I will stay active until my hands or my eyes don’t work.

That’s kind of where it’s all at.

It is truly an honor to be included in a museum like this.

Both the building and the way things are displayed here is quite lovely, remarkable, in fact.

You know, I’m humbled, actually, when I see what other people do.

truly.

Very happy to be a part of it.

(Piano) Let’s talk about the different aspects of what you have here.

So we’ve got two floors that actually have exhibits.

Tell us about the other pieces that came in on the newest version.

You know, we knew we wanted to get the second floor open for exhibits.

People just want to go see more of the house.

So it was a priority because we have so many really cool collections pieces.

This place is so fantastic.

This house is so fantastic.

But we had pieces that were going to be really functionally difficult to get into the house.

We had to actually take out the windows on the second floor, and get them hoisted up in and through the window, which was a little terrifying.

But one of our feature pieces upstairs is a Titanic that is 75,000 toothpicks, and a gallon of Elmer’s glue.

You wouldn’t really be able to tell.

Yeah, the Titanic is kind of the feature piece of a nautical exhibit that has a lot of different versions of ships from throughout history.

We have a French gallery, so that is based around Louis XIV.

And then the final galleries based around what’s called the Roundhouse.

It is a wooden roundhouse and an art nouveau style.

That gallery is a gallery that really features different materials, and puts the different materials that pieces are made of out of front and center.

Because the comparison there is the roundhouse, which is the wood, and right in front of it, there’s glass, right?

The glass conservatory, which has very hard lines compared to the roundhouse, where everything is really rounded and organically shaped.

Absolutely.

Most popular piece.

I think it’s right behind us, the Van Gogh piece.

I think that’s the one that people get really excited about, you know, they’ve seen, oftentimes the paintings, that are of the rooms in that house.

In a way, it has the most access points for people to be able to know something about it, to be interesting, and something about it, the miniature paintings that are in there.

Tell us a story about that house, ’cause it’s amazing, and there’s architecture in there.

Yeah, it’s a gorgeous house.

It’s a huge house.

It’s a house that was the vision of Julie Poland.

She was 19 years old.

She was obsessed with the Victorian style and architecture, and she really wanted to create her own dollhouse that she knew her dad could make.

He built the structure, and she had begun to fill the house out with certain furniture.

She had built the conservatory in the back.

I think she had finished the kitchen.

But unfortunately, she was only 26 at the time.

She had an untimely passing in a car accident while she was in nursing school.

So it sat in the Polands, her parents’ garage for 19 years, and they were looking for somebody to be able to finish the piece.

They didn’t know it, but actually, somebody that they knew was would eventually become the artist that finished the piece.

Vicki finished the piece over, I think it was seven years that she was working on the piece, using Julie’s notes, her drawings, her clippings, to be able to try and make the piece out in the styles that she knew that Julie would have really appreciated.

So they started reaching out to different museums, different, even hospitals, because she was trained to be a nurse at the time, to see if the house could be featured in any of these places.

For us, being a new organization, we actually did have, at the time, some collection space, and some exhibit space, and so we were able to bring it in, and the family was able to be here for the opening, which was really lovely, both Julie’s parents, and then her sister, and I think, you know, as we came to understand what it really meant to the family.

It felt like it was a moment of a lot of closure for the family, to get to see the piece and Julie’s legacy featured in a museum like this.

What does all of this mean to you?

You seem to have really a heart and a passion for this.

I appreciate people that... care so much and that, uh, find the joy in life, that have an appreciation for things.

If you can literally have an appreciation for the little things, then I think you’re somebody who’s living life the right way.

I think the people that do this are people that I appreciate, and I want to be associated with.

I’m not a miniaturist myself.

I’ve come to love the art form.

And I’ve come to love the community that it’s based in, as well.

I think that’s mostly what it means to me, is just, this is a world that helps give me perspective, literally and figuratively, on life, that I really appreciate.

(Gothic piano) (Energetic music) I am the owner of Mad Props/ designer art department, working in the film and video industry.

So I went to film school, and I kind of tried out every department in the film industry, realized I fell in love with the art department, and that’s all I wanted to do.

I like being more hands on, and building things and getting messy.

I have no idea if I even have enough to spray in here, but... that’s okay.

This is just for fun.

So, I, honestly, I spent a lot of time at Lantern Coffee in Grand Rapids, and it was just me and some, like, people from the film industry.

Like, we were all just, like, talking about, like, the weird projects we’ve been on.

We were like, we should categorize all the weird props we have, in case other people want to use these.

And so it just kind of started as, like, a Google Drive file.

Most of the stuff is kind of just, like, a glorified interior decorating for productions, so it’s, like, they show me photos of the house.

Hopefully, I get to go on the location scout.

And so I usually come into an existing house, and then bring in a truckload of props, shop for individual things that we need specifically for that production.

There are some situations where it’s, like, you’re building full onsets, and then other situations where we’re working with a virtual wall.

There’s a couple in Grand Rapids, where it’s like a giant TV screen, essentially, as the background, so all you need to build is, like, the foreground element.

So just, like, if you’re in a kitchen, you want the kitchen island, or if you’re in a park, like, we have some park benches over there.

You want it to be beautiful, but you also don’t want it to like, draw your eye too much.

Like, it can’t be fabulous.

It has to just be nice.

You know, it’s like, if you don’t notice it, you’re kind of doing your job, unless you’re going for, like, a really cool stylized project, which I love doing.

(Guitar) So, we have this lovely coffin that’s now serving as a vampire Airbnb.

Sorry.

We have this lovely coffin over here that’s now a storage locker.

It’s from the Billy Strings show that they had at Van Andel for Halloween a couple years ago.

It was a wrestling themed show, and so it’s like, the whole band came out, dressed as their favorite wrestlers.

And so this coffin over here was for the undertaker.

And so it came out on a hydraulic table, so it was lifted up, just, like, looking like, you know, a funeral.

We had people pushing it on stage, like, wearing hoods.

It was super creepy, and fog was coming in.

And then the 6’7 guy came out of the coffin and started playing the show.

There’s so many things that I’ve learned working in the art department, but it’s, like, I have to, like, full fledged, like, YouTube university, for one specific thing, or, like, become an expert on, like, fly fishing, for something.

Like, it’s so niche a lot of the times.

I’ve been doing this for 15 years.

There’s a lot of skills that it’s like, Oh, I didn’t realize this would come up again.

I love that I can’t predict what’s coming up next.

You have no idea what you’re gonna need in the future.

And I always encourage people.

If there’s something you’re interested in, go full pledge into it, just, like, have that hobby, like, find a way to use that or learn from it and, like, bring it into other aspects of this industry.

And, like, it doesn’t even always make sense.

There’s not that many resources in the Midwest.

Whenever it comes to like art department.

Like, if you’re in Los Angeles or New York, there’s prop houses all over the place, you can literally find anything, literally just, like, a phone call, and a prop truck away from being delivered to you.

Then here, it’s like, our closest prop house is in Chicago.

Most productions can’t afford to, like, buy it new all the time, and obviously, it’s, like, shipping from Los Angeles, New York, would destroy the budget.

So it’s, like, I like to have this inventory, be able to rent it out, fairly cheap, to the other, like, people who productive design or arch direct in this area, so they can afford to get, like, the crazy dinosaur skulls or weird niche thing that they need for the project.

They don’t have to spend their money on, like, just generic faces and pot of plants, stuff like that.

It’s a little tiny prop house here.

But I really do think it at least helps me a ton, have, like, having the ability to just go shopping through my own stuff before going shopping in stores, ’cause it’s, like, I could fill up a bin with what would probably have been, like, $500 worth of stuff for a shoot.

And I’m just like, Oh, good, I have this on hand just in case we need it.

I’m kind of hoping that this can not only be, like, prop storage, but also, like, prop, like, custom prop building.

Um, and also just, like, a little, I don’t know, like, a niche art mecca for people who just want to, like, explore things.

And so this is kind of just, like, a way that I want to help people be able to, like, live creatively.

(Buzzing) (Bell ring) That first decade of my adult life, I did not care if I lived, died, went to prison, went to jail, or nothing.

I just was chasing a high.

I mean, it starts as early as being a child.

I was born with literally 11 drugs in my blood, so, some may say I was born addicted to drugs already.

Growing up, I ended up being adopted two different times.

On my 18th birthday, I got off the bus from school, and everything I owned was, you know, sitting on the porch, and I no longer had anywhere to go.

And the only people that took me in were people that were using alcohol every day and drugs every day.

So naturally, I became a product of my environment.

There were some close calls where, you know, I probably shouldn’t be here today, but by the grace to God, I still am, and I’m extremely thankful for that.

You know, eventually, I was able to get into a tattoo shop, a local tattoo shop.

that was trying to keep me there, to keep my mind away from chasing what I was, but I was still basically homeless, so when I left there, I would spend all night instead of sleeping anywhere, I would walk.

And then when they opened, I’d be there, and I’d go crash for a couple hours, but that was my life.

And once I started getting serious about my piercing, I decided that this is something I really love to do, and that the only way I was ever gonna be good at it is if I wasn’t known as, like, the junkie that was piercing people, or the guy that was shaking when he was trying to do a tattoo or a body piercing, ’cause who wants that, right?

So, I mean, that literally is what motivated me.

(Calming music) I used this career to help me get clean so that I could be the best I possibly could.

You know, now I have three children of my own and three stepchildren.

I’m married, and I’ve been sober for 10 years from all hard drugs that most people can’t sit here and say the same for, you know?

(Peaceful music) Cause that’s literally what gave me the idea for the podcast is the amount of times, as a tattoo artist, we’re always talking, ’cause, you know, small talk is small talk, and nine times out of ten, I always found myself talking about, you know, the question is, I always, Well, maybe you want to be a tattoo artist, and I don’t hold anything back, so I always talk about, I was a junkie, and here I am, you know what I’m saying?

And explaining that.

So naturally, if someone relates to that story, I’m gonna hear their end of it, too.

When I talk to people about this, This has become my dream, right?

Being out here and trying to make a difference, but if you would have asked me, you know, 15 years ago, I was gonna be a famous rapper.

It makes it work to make a name who wants to see it, like you.

So when they finally leave, no, I don’t know why.

come through.

The greatness of the basic.

We are... I can’t explain to Russia, get some as a step on the stage.

I feel amazing.

I thought I was gonna be the next Slim Shady.

Who knows?

Um, and it’s just funny how recovery and addiction, and the path that I’m on, has molded me into, you know, I still want to speak to people, but I don’t want to speak to people in that light.

Now I want to help people, and I’m slowly seeing the dream, like, come to light and come true.

When I started my podcast, I had no idea it was gonna just start taking off like it is, but I’m extremely thankful, and I want to get out there and speak to as many people as I can if it’ll help make a difference.

You know, even after all these years, I’m coming up on a year of this shot being open, I still walk in and take a deep breath, and, you know, I’m like, I did this.

I did it.

So the feeling of accomplishment, and not only that, but always reminded myself that anything can change.

I have bad days, and there’s still days that, you know, if I’m not right in my head, I can relapse just like anybody else, but being able to walk in here, knowing that this is my fortress that I’ve built, and it attracts tons of the right kind of people for me, like, that’s everything.

It provides for my family, for my children.

And that’s what’s most important.

(Mechanical sounds) (Mechanical sounds)