Mark
A. DeCou has been working with wood and natural materials as
long as he remembers. Raised in Hutchinson, KS, Mark's artistic
training was encouraged and influenced by his father, a wood-shop
teacher and master builder of hand-made furniture and clocks,
and his mother who worked with many different crafts, including
sewing, wood carving and ceramics. Mark spent much of his summers
helping his Grandfather farm wheat and feed cattle in rural
Kansas, where he learned to love the openness and solitude of
country living, observing wildlife, problem solving and fixing
broken equipment.
Early in
Mark's childhood, his father built him a real workbench for
his bedroom and furnished plenty of tools to work with, allowing
Mark total freedom to build and create right in his bedroom.
Mark also enjoyed the free-use of his father's well furnished
wood shop and mechanic shop where his father worked in wood,
and restoring cars.
This early
development and training in woodworking, furniture, hand tools,
car restoration, and fixing things lead Mark to pursue a degree
in Mechanical Engineering at Kansas State University (1987).
After graduation, Mark worked as a project engineer for Exxon
at an oil refinery, then with Koch Industries in industrial
construction and sales. These first jobs provided excellent
training in project management, quality control, safety, marketing,
and sales, but failed to provide the creative-artistic outlets
that Mark was dreaming of.
With
too many years of dreaming and planning and after selling two
Harley motorcycles, a new 4x4 pickup, and an old Corvette, to
raise capital and eliminate debt, and paying off their home
by cashing out their corporate retirement accounts, Mark struck
out on his own in 1997 determined to pursue a life creating
and selling furniture and fine-art. In the summer of 2001, Mark
and Shelli bought a farmhouse in rural Chase County, where Mark
has set up his studio to build and sell his work, marketing
through word-of-mouth, art and craft shows, and now the world-wide-web.
Mark enjoys
building Cabin and Western style furniture and furnishings,
using hard woods with carved decorations, and natural materials
such as deer and elk antler, steer horns, limestone, mother-of-pearl,
abalone, river shell, and many other natural materials found
among the hills and creeks in their area. These works include
scrimshaw, powder horns, lights, tables, chairs, mirrors, and
other furniture items.
“If
a man works with his hands, he’s a laborer. If a man works
with his hands & his head, he’s a craftsman. But, if
a man works with hands, his head, and his heart, he’s an
artist.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi
"Great
nations write their autobiography in three manuscripts: the
book of their words, the book of their deeds and the book of
their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we
read the other two, but of the three, the only one quite trustworthy
is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good
fortune, and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its
children, but its art can be supreme only by the general gifts
and common sympathies of the race." - John Ruskin
"Art
is a man's expression of joy in his labor."--William Morris
(1834-1896)
"Looking
back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I
did not say so." -- David Grayson
Biography
