Salina man uses intarsia woodworking as medicine

SALINA, Kan. (KSNW) — Stan Lauer was a middle school principal in Salina for over 20 years. He says the stressful job was wearing on his body.

“I was coming home at night with headaches and neck aches, and I knew it was stress,” Lauer said.

He built his shop in the mid-90s and started learning about Intarsia , which uses different woods, thicknesses and colors to create art.

“The main thing is to know what direction to run the grain,” Lauer said. “Each separate colored piece is cut out with a saw. It’s labor intensive and takes a lot of patience.”

He started to notice how woodworking relieved stress.

“I was coming home at night with headaches and neck aches, and I knew it was stress,” Lauer said. “The shop became my aspirin.”

Decades later, he is making sawdust every day.

“When I started doing it, I started at kind of a medicinal purpose,” Lauer said. “As time went on, I just loved it. And the fun thing is, you watch it come to life before your eyes. When you get done, you say, wow, this looks pretty neat.”

He has created a new bird ornament each year since 2001.

“There’s time I say, why am I doing this because it takes me 180 new birds a year, and it takes about an hour and a half to make one,” Lauer said. “You get about halfway through and say, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But when they’re done, you say, ‘Ah, this is great!'”

He uses natural-colored wood, not dyes. Lauer, who is 82, says his ability to do it is self-gratifying. He has come a long way with his skills over the years.

“The evolution of where I start to finished product and hangs in the wall in there is quite the difference,” Lauer said.

The projects take him hundreds of hours, and he says it requires a lot of patience. He mostly makes gifts but goes to one show each year in Manhattan.

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