When white oaks were removed from the lawn of the Capitol in Madison, Paul Morrison converted some of the wood into a handsome bookshelf for a legislator. He crafted black walnut from a tree felled in a tornado in Stoughton into beautiful cabinetry, stair railings, a fireplace mantle and a bedroom set for a new home the owner built.

At a time when most furniture sold in America is made of wood grown here, shipped to China and transported back, Morrison, 49, is doing things differently. He is the owner and principal craftsman for the Wood Cycle LLC in Oregon, Wis., a gallery, workshop and sawmill on a former farmstead that specializes in transforming discarded wood into beautiful, custom-made furniture, cabinetry, bowls and art pieces.

“I don’t get the logic of shipping local wood to China just to save a buck on labor,” Morrison emphasizes. “Some people are willing to pay for true craftsmanship and sustainability.”

Morrison left his state job to open the Wood Cycle last year, and is betting that there’s a market for his locally made, quality-crafted pieces completed in an environmentally sustainable way. The odds on that bet got longer because of the recession in 2009, and Morrison had to lay off two of his four employees. But he’s seen sales climb 20 percent this year, and is optimistic about the future as the economy grows stronger.

The Wood Cycle takes wood through the complete cycle from tree harvesting to fine woodworking products. Whenever possible, Morrison harvests dead or dying trees and ones that have no commercial use. He’s made furniture from a dead hickory from a Fitchburg home, several dead butternuts outside a Belleville house and an uprooted hackberry in his town. Even roots, limbs and pieces so unusual they would otherwise have no use except for firewood are made into art and décor items. Most of the wood comes from Dane County.

At the Wood Cycle, the wood is milled on his sawmill and dried by solar energy in an old greenhouse. Pieces are then crafted in the workshop and finished with water-soluble, non-toxic finishes. Some of the scraps left from projects go into pieces such as an artistic table made up of small sections of different woods glued together. Other scraps are used to heat his buildings, or for mulch.

He also emphasizes recycling. “He’ll recycle just about anything,” says his nephew and employee, Jonathan Uecker. He and his workers moved a century-old barn to the site and restored it into the Wood Cycle’s Hayloft Gallery and workshop. He used twice reclaimed redwood for a TV console, old shutter hinges for drawer pulls and a former silo ladder for a series of picture frames.

Many of the Wood Cycle’s artifacts will be on display at the Hayloft Gallery, 1239 Fish Hatchery Road, Oregon, Wis., at the annual Arts in the Barns weekend Saturday, June 19 and Sunday, June 20. The Wood Cycle also has an online store showing some of his work at its Web site, www.thewoodcycle.com.

Morrison went to work as an environmental engineer for the state after completing an engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin. But he continued to pursue cabinet and furniture making as a hobby and part-time job during his 20-year career with the state, and gradually made wood-working his full-time job.

He says he has been passionate about wood-working ever since childhood when he first learned his skills watching his grandfather, Bill Te Ronde of Oostburg, construct cabinets in the Old World Dutch style. He describes his furniture and cabinets as “prairie/mission” style of the early 1900s with added artistic and natural flairs.

“They use designs that have been around for generations,” he says. “They’re built to last 100 years.”

And to make sure there will be wood for generations, Morrison has planted some 5,000 to 6,000 trees.

By John Hill

You can contact John Hill by e-mail at jhoythill@sbcglobal.net.