When we left Vermont over 35 years ago to settle in the Blackfoot Valley, we had three goals: to work at home, to work together and to create something beautiful and useful with our hands. To this end we established SwanWoods.

SwanWoods has a simple product line: award winning wooden salad bowls and wooden vessels. We appreciate the beauty of highly figured hardwoods. Each bowl is one of a kind, an artistic combination of woods carefully crafted and given a food-safe finish.

Pursuit of excellence in the craft of woodworking has been a very satisfying endeavor for us. We love sharing our experience with others and regularly receive visitors to our studios.

For a number of years, we traveled around the Western US selling ourbowls. Currently. most of our work is sold through galleries and shops and to past customers. Because thebowls are often gifts marking special occasions. we engrave the bottom of each with our name. the types of wood and a personal inscription, for example—the name of a bride and groom and their wedding date.

In addition to full-time woodworking, we enjoy hiking, gardening, and traveling together. Jerry is a scholar of ancient Chinese who taught at the university level and continues to translate and write about Chinese philosophy. Martha is a third generation woodworker for whom every day is too short.

Our work has been featured in the "Landscape and Lathe" show at the Livingston Center for Art and Culture in Livingston, Montana in 2016. We also attend the Bigfork Festival of the Arts, first weekend of August, and The Labor Day Arts Fair in Red Lodge, Montana in early September. We welcome visitors year­-round, as well as during Alpine Artisans' Tour of the Arts, the second weekend of October.