Rob Hetler’s artistry with wood creates the kind of treasures that become family heirlooms. Each piece of furniture is designed and crafted by hand at his Greenbank studio.

But before he even picks up a chisel, Hetler tunes into the nature of the wood.

“It’s all about the life of the tree,” he said. “I try to listen to the story the tree tells, although sometimes it does not speak too loudly,” he added, chuckling.

The stories are told graphically in the patterns of the wood grains he discovers when opening a log with a saw. The grain tells of sunny growing days and of the hardship of surviving drought and flood. But it’s pestilence, the ravages of fungi and insects, that draws exciting dark shapes and outlines in the wood.

Hetler favors spauled maple to accent many of his pieces.

Spaulding is the name given to the pattern created by a fungi attacking the tree, the intricate black design of the organisms’ death march through the wood.

He currently ís working on a kitchen island featuring spaulded wood panels for the second annual Whidbey Island Woodworkers Guild show Sept. 9 to 18.

When finished, the piece will showcase his techniques, the colors and the grain in yellow pine, cherry, ebony and the spaulded maple.

The show will feature pieces by Hetler and 19 other Whidbey Island artisans. They are all members of the a guild that a handful of woodworkers formed in 2001. Meeting monthly at different members’ shops, the guild has grown to include 25 full-time professionals and 60 non-professionals.

The Guild provides an opportunity for members to exchange information and ideas.

Hetler is one of the founding members, an artisan whose work is highly visible. He built a custom-display cabinet for the pioneer Pratt House on Ebey’s Prairie. He also built several cases for Sandrajean Wainwright, a custom jeweler in Langley.

Libraries, music rooms and bathrooms in some of the finest houses on Whidbey boast his craftsmanship.

While many of the applications for his work are utilitarian, he is first and foremost an artist.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in art from New York State University in Rockport. He was almost halfway through the Master’s program at the Chicago Art Institute when the urge struck to live in Israel. Overseas, he worked as a building contractor. He and wife Cynthia lived in Israel for six years and had two children before returning to the United States.

In 1987, the family moved to Whidbey. Hetler was offered the use of a shop near Langley. In 1998, he built his present shop facing the highway south of Greenbank.

“It has been great,” he said. “I feel blessed. I get to work in my own shop and be creative.”