Wood artist Todd Hoyer’s studio, or rather, shed, is perched on the steep slope of a hillside in Bisbee, Arizona. When the wind blows, wood chips scuttle across his bench and slip to the floor. wood artist Hayley Smith’s studio, newly completed, is just steps from Todd’s and the home they share. Her studio is insulated, heated and large windows frame panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. From their studios to their styles, the differences are striking, but beneath the surface, their aesthetic interests are strikingly similar. The divergent approaches we see in their work are in fact, expressions of remarkably convergent aesthetic languages.

By the time they met, then married, each had already established a reputation among collectors of wood art. Indeed, the work of both Hoyer and Smith is found in the collections of many important American museums, such as the American Craft Museum and the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, as well as prestigious private collections including Arthur and Jane Mason’s.

Hoyer’s large, hewn pieces often explore issues of balance and their content is deeply personal. They contrast markedly from the refined delicacy of Smith’s design driven pieces. Her blonde woods’ silken finishes reflect light; color and texture are impeccably applied and always done with an eye for pure design. If Hoyer uses color, it is fire blackened char, or an earthen red stain. His surfaces are hewn or ragged, or left completely unfinished. His pieces are weighty whereas Smith’s seem to float.

One discovers that these different stylistic “languages,” so apparent at first, are misleading. As Smith observes, “We both were and are preoccupied with creating visual layers and forms as metaphor. Contrast, both texturally and tonally, is of particular interest, yet expressed differently having developed our own visual language.” Her work explores the circle, his explores spheres, and for both Smith and Hoyer, these pure forms serve as departure points for the examination of larger existential and aesthetic issues. Remarkably, it is through these different languages that their shared truths are revealed.