By Hannah Pollock
Where a homeowner may see a mess to clean up, Steve Strouse sees an opportunity to create meaningful art. He finds his canvases in what many consider to be disposable fallen trees, transforming them into boxes, kitchen tools, clocks, and more.
Strouse is a woodworker who shares Centre County’s history through salvaged hardwoods from downed trees. Each piece he creates is not only handmade, but also a part of central Pennsylvania history.
“My desire is to make very functional pieces which are also a display of the beautiful hardwoods found here in central Pennsylvania,” he types on a card included with each purchase.
Strouse started a custom wood furniture business in 1993. Soon after, a customer asked if he could make a Shaker box. Without knowing what it was, Strouse agreed to give it a try.
“After I did the research, I really became fascinated with the whole process,” he says.
A Shaker box is an ovular wooden box with a fitted lid, credited to the Shakers, a religious group from England which came to the northeastern United States in the 1700s.
“The Shakers made the boxes to keep everything in its place,” Strouse says.
The boxes quickly became one of his best-selling pieces. He has multiple sizes of the Shaker box, each featuring a thin piece of wood wrapped around the exterior. Strouse bends each box into place using a mold. The wood is soaked for 45 minutes in a copper tray filled with 180-degree water to increase its mobility.
“When it is wrapped around the mold, it’s changing the structure of the cell,” Strouse says. “When the water evaporates from the pieces, then the cells will take on that new shape.”
He finishes by inserting copper tacks and drying with fans over four days. Each box includes a hand-crafted wooden lid.
Strouse says the completed project is much more than a box for organization or gifting—it is a piece of history. His business centers on memorable trees, something he says is special to those who live in Centre County.
“People from this area really have an attachment to their trees. I don’t know that my business would have taken off in any other area but around central Pennsylvania,” he says.
When a tree comes down, Strouse gets into contact with the property owner to find a way to repurpose the wood.
His American elm pieces, including Shaker boxes, feature wood salvaged from Penn State’s campus after trees were severely damaged by winter storms in 1995 and 1996. He purchased the wood and began creating Shaker boxes and other products.
“I thought that would make such a fantastic story,” Strouse says.
He found great interest when he introduced the product to customers at local arts festivals, including the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and the People’s Choice Festival.
Strouse expanded his products to include a pencil holder crafted in the Shaker box style with the outline of a Nittany Lion, created with wood from the fallen campus trees. He collaborated with local artist Cindy Hassler to create a “Tree of Life” design. Hassler drew the tree with many branches and roots alongside Old Main. Strouse uses a machine to etch the design onto medallion pieces from the trees students once sat under on campus.
“It’s a little piece of history from campus,” he says.
Strouse also creates pieces with the sugar and Norway maple trees removed in front of the Centre County courthouse, and he partners with the Grange Fair to create keepsakes each year using trees salvaged from the fairgrounds.
“It’s a family tradition,” Strouse said of the annual event. “And they remember the trees.”
When a tree is removed at the fairgrounds, its wood goes to Strouse, who creates a variety of pieces. Each year he creates a different Grange Fair keepsake, with 25 percent of the sales donated into a fund to help maintain and remove trees, as well as to plant new ones.
Strouse says the keepsakes are meaningful to families who camp at and visit the fair. There may be a tree next to where they camp each year or by their favorite food stand, sparking emotions from years of memories.
Fairs and festivals are close to Strouse’s heart, too. When his children were younger, they would travel with him to shows and assist in running his booth. Now, he primarily focuses on his stock at The Gallery Shop in Lemont and at local craft shows. But his familial bond is still deeply rooted in Centre County.
Instead of traveling from show to show, Strouse’s children—and now grandchildren—return home each July to attend the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.
This year, his six-year-old grandson helped at the event for the entire day on Saturday.
“He just did not want to leave,” Strouse says with a smile.
Strouse creates and sells a variety of products, including serving trays, clocks, and his most popular kitchen utensil, the Spurtle. A Spurtle is a combination of a spoon and spatula, which Strouse crafts for both left- and right-handed chefs. At the heart of every product is a beloved tree from central Pennsylvania.
“The pieces I make from the trees have a special meaning,” he says. “It’s a piece of history.” T&G
Hannah Pollock is a freelance writer in State College. This story appears in the October 2022 issue of Town&Gown.
