WILTON - The old saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" holds true for Gary Krauss when he chooses the wood for his next creation.

The more sweeps and burls in a tree, the more character it has in the East Wilton man's mind. It is that character that will dictate how the piece will turn out.

Krauss is careful not to waste any part of it as he turns wood from trees on the down-slide into awe-inspiring furniture.

Scraps will be carved into the family's cherry leaves used as handles or decorations, saved for craft artisans or burned as firewood. Shavings and sawdust go to livestock bedding.

"A good piece of wood for me is probably firewood for someone else," Krauss said. "It has to have character."

Several slabs of wood, some with large burls sticking out, lean on a wall in his Native Woods mill shop; other pieces sit on a work space.

"The trees we are looking for are not commercially viable," he said, even an automated pulping operation would reject them.

"A tree is a living creature just like we are, and it grows and matures. It feeds. It has sex. It reproduces," Krauss said. "People think of a tree almost like a rock. It's more like us than an inanimate object."

Cherry, maple and beech, all hardwood, are among his favorites to work with.

People he gets his wood from know exactly what he wants.

"I love trees," Krauss said. His love was born from the live oaks in California where he grew up.

He highlights the wood's beauty by incorporating the natural curve and bark of the timber into what he's making.

"I don't want people to lose the fact that this piece of furniture is a tree. It has struggled for years," Krauss said.

The fourth-generation woodworker says his passion is to bring a tree into people's homes.

"I know forms and functions need to get out, but I still let the tree dictate what form of furniture we're going to make," Krauss said

His father, Walter Krauss, taught him woodworking techniques and brought him to the shop when he was 3 years old. By age 6, he knew what tools his father needed.

"He was a great natural teacher. He always taught you to think. He was always one to let you use your common sense and discover things," Krauss said. "He certainly inspired my love of wood."

A fire at the Krauss' home and mill in East Wilton in 2002 was an awakening for Gary Krauss. He changed his style of woodworking from manipulating wood to letting the style of the tree and the look of the grain tell him how it would be made into functional furniture.

He works bark-to-bark using the organic edge of the grade to show the history of the tree in a live-edge process.

Live-edge provides less waste and more functional use of the tree, he added

"That's why I consider the furniture green," Krauss said. "We're taking a low value and giving it a valued function and wasting very little." He said he discovers something every day as he works the wood with others in the family business of Native Woods.

The wood is smoothed to perfection and hand-rubbed to bring out its natural beauty.

"You get that fulfillment from working with something naturally beautiful and get a sense of fulfillment of taking a natural product and making it into a functional piece of art," Krauss said.