Swamp Wood Creative Designs

Ironically, Glenn Pace doesn’t view himself as an artist. But the unique and striking decorative pieces he renders from wood make it difficult, if not impossible, to view them as anything but, well, for lack of a better word….art.   

“When they call me an artist, I go, look, I'm just a guy that makes wooden bowls,” he said. “I know some artists, and I'm not an artist. I like to go out in my workshop and turn my lathe on and build a bowl. I think I make pretty cool looking stuff, but artist? I'm not sure about that.” 

The humble craftsman has had a lifelong passion for working with his hands. After high school, he spent 35 years working as a boat builder in the Florida Keys for 35 years, a profession Pace said somewhat parallels his current pursuits. 

“I like creating things,” he said. “Even when I was building boats, at the end of the day, you lay fiberglass in a mold, and you come back in the morning and you made a boat. It's all a creative process.” 

After leaving boat building, he became a Matco Tools distributorfor 15 years, before deciding to retire from the automotive tool manufacturer to spend time at the Copeland home he shares with his wife Donna and their daughter, singer-songwriter Charlie Pace. 

But restlessness, the bane of those used to being busy, left him searching for something new to occupy his mind and hands. Ironically, it was 2017’s Hurricane Ianthat led him to become a creator of wooden bowls of various sizes and vases. 

“It knocked down a bunch of trees,” he said of the Category Three storm. “I've always loved wood my whole life. I loved working with wood when I was building boats. So, I started collecting these trees, and I bought a sawmill, started cutting them up, making boards out of them.I’d built a coffee table in the past, so I thought I might do some carpentry work.” 

He found that after cutting the wood into boards, he was left with small pieces that, as he put it, were “very cool looking,” so he purchased a lathe and began making bowls. He also turned to the internet to find information on how to utilize pieces of wood that were too small for bowls. That research led to him developing a technique for crafting bowls using epoxy, a strong adhesive and coating.  

“You’ve got to have something to hold it all together: he explained. “That's where the epoxy comes in. I've kind of formulated a way of doing it that's different. Some of the other guys do it, but not the way I do it. I don't know if it's right, wrong, or indifferent, but that's the way I do it. 

Self-taught in using a sawmill and a lathe, he uses only fallen trees and limbs for his creations, crafting them, primarily, from such locally found varieties as cypress, red and black mangrove, buttonwood, cedar, and oak, augmenting their natural appearance by using different colors of epoxy. 

Pace initially gave away the bowls he made in his home studio. That practice gave way to the commercial operation he operates today under the name Swamp Wood Creative Designs.  

Because each piece of wood tends to have a unique appearance, each bowl is inherently one of a kind, even where its colorization after the addition of epoxy is concerned.  

“There's no two alike,” he added. “I mean, it's impossible.” 

Pace and his bowls and vases have become a presence at art fairs in such places as Goodland and Art in the Glades in Everglades City. His pieces can also be found at the Blue Mangrove Gallery in Marco Town Center.  

His work can also be viewed on his Facebook page (facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090950586489) Online purchases can be arranged by calling Pace at 239-289-1447.  

“We mail them, including out of state,” he said.