Christine Costa

Christine Costa | Architect + Wood Carver

In a single-car garage on Manitou Avenue, Christine Costa carves out her career break. An architect by trade, she and her husband, Dominic Costa, a welder, moved to Manitou Springsfrom the Detroit area this past summer.…

In a single-car garage on Manitou Avenue, Christine Costa carves out her career break. An architect by trade, she and her husband, Dominic Costa, a welder, moved to Manitou Springsfrom the Detroit area this past summer.

Two motorcycles rest side by side in the garage. At the back wall is a workbench, a vise and assorted hand tools Christine, 32, uses to craft blocks of wood into beautiful, functional pieces. Spoons, salt cellars, valet trays and rings.

“We just wanted a mid-career break,” she says. “We up and moved out here — we planned it for, like, two years — and I started doing this to fill my time.

“We’ve been kind of pretending we’re retired. We do fun stuff, and go camping and hiking and fishing. It’s almost over. We gave ourselves six months.”

As Christine’s tools and works-in-progress sit idle, we talk about what not to do on a dirt bike, the value of a career sabbatical, and the meditative flow of her craft. We talk about how to avoid looking like a “weirdo” when standing in the middle of a river, soaking up Colorado nature. And we touch on the complicated relationship she has with her “baby,” the 1966 Honda motorcycle that accompanies her in her Deadtree Workshop.

Read the full story here.

 

 

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