| BIOGRAPHY: Ross Haber |
| All through the years, leading up to this time, I was still building things from wood in my parents� garage and still creating metal sculpture and selling at art shows and craft fairs, And still playing the guitar. I was now writing music and dreaming of being a rock star or a folk singer. I played in local talent shows and in a few clubs through the early 90�s. I produced two CD�s #1 in 1993 �Whispers In The Wind�, and #2 in 1996 �Short Memories And Long Term Notions�. In 2002 I collaborated with my producer and began writing underscores for T.V., movies and video. In 1976 I decided to work in commercial art because I needed a cleaner job. I went to work for Zulch and Zulch, Inc. a publishing company that produced the optics catalogs for the optometric community. I lasted about a year there before I headed out on my own and opened RAH Studios and Ross Haber Graphic Design where I did production art as well as print media and design, copy writing and logo design. I was good at it, but I never really enjoyed what I was doing. During that same time period I started painting on canvas with acrylics. My style was linear graphics. I actually had some minor successes with my paintings. I was commissioned by interior designers to paint for model homes and did the art show circuit in the LA area. In 1986 after the death of my father, I decided that life was too short to be doing something that I didn�t like, so I went back to my wood cutting roots and opened up Ross Haber Woodworks. Since then I�ve spent my time teaching myself, and the people that work with me, how to build the furniture I design. Sometimes the most complicated pieces have the simplest solutions. As in life, the shop is always in a state of flux, with new twists and scenarios popping up on a daily basis. I�m never sure what the future will bring, but for now I�ve found a home with woodworking. Even when pressed for an idea on future mediums, I can�t think of one. I�ve found that this is what I do best. |
| Ross Haber Woodworks was officially established in 1986, growing out of a simple handyman business in my garage. After helping some family friends with a kitchen remodel, I was asked by the parents of their friends to build an entirely new kitchen, then new bath vanities, and eventually I replaced or built new just about every wood item for their home. After that a business associate asked me to construct a bar and entertainment center, and so Ross Haber Woodworks came to life. Eighteen years later I find myself designing wood art, furniture and cabinetry for clients all through California, from Simi Valley to Bel Air, from San Francisco to San Diego. I've been told that our shop is one of the few that design and build with the age-old quality of the master craftsman, and it's a great feeling to know that the creations born here will be around for many years after we are. |
| Of course, I wasn't always a woodworker. I was born in Burbank, California in 1953, starting my actual life in Panorama City. I feel like I came from the mold with predestined direction because I've never felt that I had any choices with art, it was only a matter of which medium I was going to use. Turns out I've used quite a few. |
| My first attempt at selling art was with metal and wire sculpture. I designed a series of bicycles, motorcycles, boats, cars and trains made of wire, sheet copper and tin can rims (as wheels). All of these were soldered together, I didn't know about welding yet. My mother and I sold them at her art shows and later I was lucky enough to place them in a few stores around town. Around the same time 1966 or so I picked up my first guitar, taught myself to play some Peter, Paul and Mary, Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel and also started doing copper enameled jewelry, at first for gifts and later on for enterprise. In 1968 I took my first wood shop class between the 9th and 10th grade in summer school. I built an end-table for my bedroom and a checker/chess board made of white oak and mahogany which I still have. I thought it would be pretty cool to earn a living by making things out of wood. I had no idea I'd end up here. Now that I knew how to use a table saw, I dug out my father's 1950 Craftsman table saw and jointer and found myself glued to the garage, building speaker boxes and light organs (electronics supplied by my friend Steve Horowitz). I still was doing metal sculpture to earn money to buy supplies for my other artistic interests. In 1969 I spent a week at JCA Camp in Redlands, California, near Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead. They had a limited, but most inspiring arts and crafts program. I was taught basic black and white photography and simple darkroom techniques, candle making and I pounded a disc of aluminum in to the dirt with a hammer to make an ash tray. That week was a revelation on many fronts. I was soon to be sixteen; we were all hippies; the girls dress codes were extremely lax. I brought my guitar with me and my counselor Neil taught me a three finger picking that made me sound brilliant with the four chords that I knew. |
| Back at home I dove into photography. I couldn't get enough. I built a make-shift darkroom in my garage borrowing some 1940's equipment from my Uncle Marvin. I was limited to the evenings for print making, it was the only way to get a completely dark garage. The next school season I enrolled in photo class, I could have stayed there all day every day, unfortunately there was other school work to be done. I dreamed of becoming a photographer for National Geographic. My parents even went down to Brooks Institute of Photography to perpetuate the educational process. Unfortunately my grades weren't good enough, among other things. I did work as a photographer for a while, shooting little leagues, Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings, but I got burned out on the non- creative work that I was doing and lost interest. In the 11th grade I was also able to take an industrial drawing class, this one was substantially better than the class I had taken in the 7th grade, we actually drew more than just a block of soap. The skills I learned in my high school industrial arts class have benefited me through every career that I've had in creative fields. I took other art classes in high school, learning numerous techniques in painting, collage, ceramics, paper machete and drawing. |
| During summers I would always find something to do. The summer after high school, I worked for my next door neighbor�s dental lab where we made false teeth. I was able to learn, by watching, not doing, the lost-wax process of casting precious metals. After graduation, the fear of having to go to war was ever present. Still life presses on and off to college I headed. Because of the conflict in Viet Nam, getting into college classes was difficult at best, especially any of the art classes. So after 2 years of fighting the city college system I left, 6 units short of an AA degree, and went to an occupational school. At North Valley Occupational Center I learned basic commercial art and silk-screen printing. After completing the course I went immediately into the world, working as a screen printer. I worked in a few different shops printing labels, stickers, circuit-boards and T-shirts. I opened my own print shop in my parents� garage and was later consumed into a larger company. I eventually left that field for health reasons. |
| In 1971 I was lucky enough to get a short time job working with Ken Koupal, an architectural model builder. I worked on a scale model of 4, forty-story buildings on a man-made island. I built mock-ups of the building site, the marina and roadway to the island, and all of the balconies and the planter boxes that went on them. I would ask Ken what the tolerances were on a specific process, and he would say �plus or minus 0.� Having that job has made me a stickler for details that I�m sure drives the guys in our shop nuts. I�m also sure that it has made all of us better craftsman. After architectural model building, I wound up working for a body and fender shop next door. We rebuilt wrecks, restored antiques and customized a few hot rods. It was a dirty business, but I learned how to contour shapes with resin-base shaping compounds (bondo). When I realized that there was really no future in body and fender work for me, I found a job working for Hillside House of Originals as a metal sculptor. Most of what I did was sheet copper braising and steel to steel welding. I developed a line of bicycles for them that I modeled after the sculptures I soldered together when I was years younger. |
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