Matt Pierce has been a builder and tinkerer for as long as he can remember. This curiosity – to see how things work, take them apart, customize and create new things – led him to start Wood&Faulk, a blog about projects and DIY. He tells us more here…

Wood&Faulk represent well-made, classic lifestyle items with the familiarity of objects your grandparents might have carried. Taking inspiration from the old and the new, the classics and the future classics, Wood&Faulk make items that are built to last with timeless Americana style.

Wood&Faulk started as a simple blog by Matt Pierce in 2010.  It began as a place to document projects, ideas and DIY. Derived from project experiments on the blog and items used in the workshop, Wood&Faulk has developed into a little company known for bags, belts, accessories and other objects inspired by its Oregon home and its Kansas roots.

“The quintessential Wood&Faulk project has to be the Official Campstool. It was first produced as a DIY project, and turned into a more refined piece for customers and friends.” says Pierce. “Have you seen modern-day camp stools? Your grandpa would be ashamed to see you using one!”

Another such project is the Wood&Faulk belts. They were originally created as a project on the blog about how leather wears-in according to the way the user wears it. More and more people requested them, and they were later introduced as a regular store item.

Matt Pierce was born and raised in the Midwestern state of Kansas. He grew up learning auto mechanics, carpentry, plumbing and welding from his family and friends and has continued to build things his entire life. All of these trades came together when he was living in and working on refinishing his own houses in Kansas. The origin of the name Wood&Faulk harkens to streets in his old neighborhood – Woodrow Ave. and Faulkner Street. After selling the Woodrow Ave. home, he moved to the Pacific Northwest, where he found an excellent community of DIY culture, building, making and design that continues to inspire.  Nowadays he spends his free-time refinishing a small 104 year-old house and a FJ62 Land Cruiser.

The majority of W&F products are made in the Beam&Anchor building, where my studio resides. We’re a little family with a painter, soap maker, treasure hunters, upholsters, cabinet and furniture makers, and a retail shop on the ground floor. It’s an amazing building that faces the Union Pacific train yard, under the Fremont bridge in Portland Oregon. The sound of trains, the tools roaring inside, some great music and the sun falling over the West Hills all make this place really amazing. I’m really fortunate to be in the building.

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

But what few notice is the miracle in Charlotte Square: the city that is the Edinburgh International Book Festival grows there in three weeks, only to be dismantled at the end of the Festival season… By the end of July it’s clear that something is afoot, although it’s yet a far cry from the finished product.

Something I hadn’t realised is that the placement of the many and varied buildings around the square is something that has evolved over the 28 years since the festival started. Each tent is squeezed up between the trees to make as much use of the space as is possible!

I had hoped to create a thorough series of the build this year but time, and the weather, foiled me. So instead I went on site on the day when the books were due to start coming in, a remarkable undertaking when you realise how many they have! When I arrived most of the buildings were there, it was only lacking the entrance, the Spiegeltent and the yurts which are used to house the authors, press etc. The bookshop tent was all but complete; the shelves were all there, all it needed were books!

The children’s bookshop tent was slightly further behind, with workmen still finishing the shelving, but this seemed a minor matter.

The site was a hive of directed activity, the displays were getting the finishing touches…

… the main theatre was getting the last bits of tech installed…

… there were chairs and tables just waiting to be placed…

… and the last of the walkways were getting covered.

At last the moment arrived and the first load of books arrived. The initial set up takes three lorries loads of books. Over the course of the festival some are taken away and replaced, as different events will cause demand for different stock. This is all rotated through a secure container on site and a huge warehouse out of town. Now there’s a timelapse I should do!

As each pallet of books was unloaded it was delivered to one of the bookshops and unwrapped.

The boxes are then taken to the appropriate section by the bookshop staff, where they mount up at a fair pace!

Once the first delivery is in the unpacking starts and shelves start to fill up.

… and are delivered to the bookshops…

… and the shelves fill up…

And all the while every box has to be painstakingy flatpacked for later – after all, not everything gets sold and they will need to get them out again in just a few weeks!

It was a dizzying thing to watch!

I’ll be going in again before the Book Festival starts but I expect it will be all ready to go. Then it’s time for the fun and I’ll try to keep you appraised of what’s been happening there.