My name is Russell Gale, and I am the owner/operator of Ardon Woodcrafting. I am a sheet metal fabricator by trade, spending 20 years at Ford Motor Company as a skilled tradesman. I am also a long time martial artist in the art of Taekwondo. I have served as a USA National Team Coach for the past 12 years.
As a young boy I was taught by my Uncle Art how to swing a hammer and basic wood working skills. As I grew older, my Uncle Art and I would spend hours in his woodshop after his retirement, building various projects for our families and friends. I formed a love for working with wood in his shop. However, when I discovered the world of blending epoxy with wood it opened an entirely new world for me to explore.
I began to create some unique pieces as gifts for friends and pieces for my own home. It was then that I realized that this is something I could love doing, thus in 2020, Ardon Woodcrafting was born. I built a small shop in my home and started fabricating and selling custom furniture incorporating epoxy into my pieces to express my creative side. In 2022 I decided to take the jump and commit to this on a serious level.
Over the years, I have found myself experimenting with different ideas and developed a series of custom boxes that can be designed for whiskey drinkers, cigar smokers, wine lovers, and many other uses.
I know you will find something of interest in my list of projects, and if you have an idea for something unique, please feel free to reach out to create something special and unique to your personality along side me.
How did I come up with the name, Ardon?
It is actually something that has been a lifetime in the making. The company is named after my Uncle Art, and my Uncle Don. Both men were very influential in my life and inspired me to do something special.
My Uncle Art was actually my neighbor living next to my grandparents when I was born many years ago. As a young boy growing up in the 60’s and 70’s the times were very challenging for me. Our neighbor, Arthur Keller, a strong, honest and hardworking man, saw the challenges I was facing and decided to step in and help me grow. It was his example of how life can be filled with honesty and love that inspired me to be better than the environment I was growing up in. He taught me how to work with wood, spent many hours teaching me about life, and treated me as if I were his own son. As a result, he became known to me as Uncle Art. He spent 40 plus years caring for his wife, Betty, while she battle Parkinson’s disease. Never once did he complain about what anyone else in his position would see as a burden. To my Uncle Art, it was just his responsibility. He raised 5 kids, and brought me into that fold. In his last years he lost his sight and was not able to continue his love for woodworking. But the pieces he created for his children, and their children live as an example of the person he was.
The other half of the name comes from my Uncle Don. Donald Harkness was the brother of my grandmother, Rebecca Jane Kovacs (Harkness). My Uncle Don was stricken with polio in the 1940’s as a teen. At this time in our history, viral polio was a strong killer of the young, and the expectations that he would live were not high. He spent nearly a year in an iron lung while the doctors attempted to destroy the disease that fought to take his life. After his battle with the disease was won, he was left partially paralyzed on the right side of his body. In those days, it was expected that the men would grow and either work in the exploding industries our country was growing, or work on a farm. Neither of these options were realistic for a young man who found himself partially disabled, but Uncle Don did not see this as a negative. Rather than feel sorry for the way he was left after his fight with polio, Uncle Don decided the only path that made sense was college and getting into the business world.
Over the years, he was able to build a very successful business in the injection molding industry, and worked with the Ford family as a supplier as Ford Motor Company rose to it’s dominance in the automotive industry. He found himself fighting for his life more than once after his fight with polio, defeating cancer twice, and undergoing a quadruple bypass for his failing heart. All through this, Uncle Don never complained, he just worked and focused on keeping our family close and together. While he did not have a family of his own, he was always helping his siblings, their children and their grandchildren. Family was the most important thing to him, and he lived his life providing opportunities for as many young people as possible.
For years I would sit with both Uncle Art and Uncle Don and discuss life, politics and several other controversial subjects. I introduced the two of them when my Uncle Art contracted prostate cancer, and as my Uncle Don had survived that same disease a few years prior, I thought he would be a good person for my Uncle Art to connect with as he started his fight. After bringing them together, I learned that they had actually gone to school together, and they maintained a long and strong friendship long after Uncle Art defeated his cancer. It was those afternoon coffee sessions with the two of them that allowed me to see just what incredible men they both were, and allowed me to realize just how blessed I was to know them.
Their examples of life live with me to this day, and their inspiration is why I chose to call my business Ardon Woodcrafting. It only seemed fitting that I should honor the two men who inspired me the most by placing their name on every piece I create. I hope that my work serves as a lasting example of their greatness and that their memory lives on through my work.
