A Carmel Valley contractor turns his tools to fallen and burned trees, making wood into art.

People in Cachagua know to call Dana Mellinger when they see a pile of unwanted wood – not neatly cut firewood, but burned-out trees or gnarled branches or root balls that might otherwise just be trash. At least 100 pieces of manzanita, sycamore, maple and buckeye in various stages of drying out – a year-long process, at least – are heaped in his backyard. Dozens of manzanita root balls, torn out by a dozer cutting a fire line during the Soberanes Fire, are caked in dirt, yet to be power-washed.

This wood pile is Mellinger’s canvas. “You can see this could be a bowl,” he says, pointing at a piece of maple. “I think it’s going to turn really nice on the lathe.”

By day, Mellinger is a finish carpenter. “At work, everything is parallel lines,” he says. “So everything I do at home is round, not straight.”

That means his three lathes are essential tools. One, in his garage-turned-studio, was given to him by his father, a firefighter for whom woodwork was just a hobby, not a job.

Mellinger never had much interest in the lathe, though, until his father died about a decade ago. Loss inspired him to turn to the tool his father loved, and learn to use it. He carved a casing for a pen, which he gave to his father’s wife at the funeral, and pens became Mellinger’s first big art form.

He still makes pen casings, including clear resin pieces lined with organic materials like dried lupine petals. The pens, ranging in price from about $40-$80, are good sellers at his artist booth, where Mellinger sells under the name Cowboy Pens.

He exclusively crafted pens until he had to drive around a bunch of manzanita burls in the road in Big Sur, day after day, on his way to a job. “After a week of driving around them, I picked them up. That’s when I got the bug for bowls.”

His bowls and platters are bigger, grander and more expensive. Platters and bowls are up to 3 feet across, and many could just as easily be mounted on a wall for decoration. (They also function as bowls, but are not food-safe.)

Most pieces look and feel organic, with an unfinished edge where the wood tapers off. “There’s so much movement in this,” he says of a partly-finished sycamore platter some 2-and-a-half feet wide. “It reminds me of semen – it looks like it’s swimming – so it’s named Sailor.”

Large bowls or sinks like this are priced at hundreds of dollars, and Mellinger sells some of his creations at Coast in Big Sur. But mostly he’s in a dialogue with the wood, and sometimes holding onto a piece (by choice) for months or years after he’s made it. “I like sitting with a piece after it’s done,” he says.

This idea of a relationship to wood is part of the guiding principle in his work. Instead of sanding down discolorations or rot, Mellinger embraces the mottled or rotted look, and reflects on the approximate age of the tree it came from, estimating sometimes 300 to 500 years old. “I like to let the wood be what it wants to be. I’m not really taking any credit – it’s more intuitive than deliberate,” he says.

Yet some pieces are more deliberate, like deep vase-type pieces Mellinger calls spirit vessels. They are rounded, with a narrow hole on top. Some redwood he cuts into elegant, rectangular boxes, and the streakiness of the wood shines through. A new line of boxes for pen kits includes indentations for fountain pens and a small container of ink, something he will make from bark or acorns.

Mellinger works on these pieces as he wants to – some wood might sit for years until inspiration strikes. But he is always looking for the next piece that may speak to him, so he travels with a chainsaw. He describes recently seeing a burned white oak tree on the Esselen tribal property in Big Sur, “from a mile away,” while he was out on the land with his girlfriend, Cari Herthel, who serves as vice chair of the nonprofit Esselen Tribe of Monterey County. That elbow-shaped branch is now a giant platter, filled with Herthel’s ceremonial objects and drying sage.

For more about Cowboy Pens, call 915-2050 or visit instagram.com/cowboypens