EXHIBITIONS | Using a Band Saw Like a Pencil

Peter Kirby, an L.A. producer specializing in art and culture, filmed woodworker Sam Maloof in his workshop and home in 1990. We're posting excerpts from this footage to whet your appetite for the upcoming Huntington exhibition "The House That Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945–1985."

Click to watch more videos of Sam Maloof on YouTube.

What does Peter remember most about the shoot?

"It was the warmth that Sam conveyed, and the ease with which he worked," he recalled. "You see him using the band saw without any guards, as if it were a pencil. He didn't allow anyone else who worked for him to use the band saw in this way, but he had been doing it for decades without serious incident. It was just the way he worked."

See the results of Sam's artistic—if dangerous—approach to woodworking in a gorgeous display incorporating paintings, sculpture, and other works of art and craft in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery. The exhibition opens Saturday, Sept. 24, and runs through Jan. 30.

Thea M. Page is art writer and special projects manager at The Huntington.