Read Our Interview with the Winner of the 2025 Young Wood Pro Contest
We're thrilled to introduce Brian Skalaski, the talented winner of the 2025 Young Wood Pro contest! Brian impressed us with his exceptional craftsmanship and innovative approach to woodworking, earning him the grand prize of a $2,000 Grizzly gift card. Dive into the story behind his award-winning cabinet, explore his unique design philosophy, and discover the valuable insights he's gained throughout his journey in the woodworking industry.
What made you decide to enter the contest?
I was already in the process of pricing out a new dust collector for the shop and Grizzly was a strong contender, so the possibility of offsetting the cost with some prize money was too good an opportunity to pass up.
What was your inspiration for the design of the cabinet?
The cabinet came about from a series of experiments that used coopering, clamping pressure, and fixed points to influence the way the material would bend without a traditional mold. Believe it or not, the entire pull is bent in one shot. It's a sort of call and response method that I developed during my time at RISD where you set up some parameters, see how the material reacts, and then change the mold in response to that. When a commission came in for two liquor cabinets, a tambour cabinet with the pull detail seemed fitting. The pull is equally engaging in the open and closed position, so I added the LED strip to accentuate the negative spaces between the slats as well as the shape of the center seam in the closed position. The idea here was that the cabinet would stay closed during the day, then would be opened at the end of the day to invite yourself or your guests for an evening libation.
How long did it take for you to go from a concept idea to a finished project?
It took about a year to get from initial design to the complete pieces. There are actually two cabinets as they were commissioned for two brothers by their father using wood that was milled from their childhood home. Regrettably, I don't think I photographed them together other than in progress in the shop. I was also working full time for Brian Boland of Boland Woodworking at the time, along with my typical load of smaller commissions and displays for other artists. It was quite a busy year.
Is there anything you would like to share with other woodworkers on how you got into this career path or the lessons you learned during the build?
I entered this career at the age of 16, working at Minzner and Co. out in Easton PA before graduating high school and pursuing woodworking in an academic setting. I'm incredibly thankful that I had a chance to experience woodworking in an industrial setting before engaging in the design and craft end of it. In our modern day world of social media influencers and woodworkers largely based in the academic side of things, there's a lack of attention to what it takes to make a living out in the shop every day, paired with some righteous attitudes about what woodworking and craft “should be” with no acknowledgement of how to make it work financially. I would recommend any budding woodworker looking to make a career in this field to find a job in the industry as soon as they can. There's no replacement for being fully engulfed in woodworking for 40+ hours a week. Even with my education, it took about 3 years in the industry post college to really “get it”.
What do you anticipate you will do with the grand prize?
I've got my eye on a 3 hp canister dust collector so I can do away with the individual units I've been using and clean up the air in the shop, along with a carbide shaper head for cutting some of the unusually tapered pieces I use as steambending blanks. Utilizing shaper jigs to create repeatable patterns will greatly increase efficiency and open the door to some new possibilities.
