It is for the love of the trees that we dedicate ourselves to creating work which will honor them.
Never Stop Building is a design build studio located in Mercer, Maine. We specialize in traditional woodworking, furniture design, timber framing and finish carpentry, utilizing predominantly Japanese tools and techniques.
We believe that by building high quality, long lasting goods from natural materials we will participate in a kind relationship with the environment and improve the quality of our lives and that of our children and grandchildren. To this end we endeavor to source trees directly if possible, use little or only natural finishes, and support organizations that care about trees beyond the bottom line.
Design Philosophy
Our design philosophy is driven by a desire to "honor the tree" or more broadly, let the material speak for itself. There is beauty in simple, clean forms; unadorned with excessive ornamentation or finishes. We are influenced by traditional Japanese aesthetics, as well as the both the Shaker and Mid-Century Modern styles. By focusing on the wood first, we can best display its unique characteristics, grain, and color. In composition we aim for “just enough” to achieve the design goal; what we are after is “utilitarian elegance.”
About Jason
Jason Fox has been building since he could just walk around the hardware store with his grandmother to pick out pipe fittings for magical contraptions. Always interested in how things worked, he spent his youth mostly taking things apart. These days, however, he is obsessed with putting them together.
“For me, building, and being able to build is about self-reliance and independence. It’s about a direct connection between the vision, the hands, and the material.”
Jason originally founded Never Stop Building in 2013 as an engineering and prototyping company. However, a lifelong fascination with Japanese history and culture, coupled with a love of trees and a background in machining and computer aided design ultimately drove him head long into the precise world of Japanese woodworking.
“There is a strong reverence for nature in Japanese culture, and as a wood worker, you owe it to the tree to do something meaningful with the wood. Everything you do is informed by this covenant: care for tools, respect for material, service to the customer. That’s the craftsman’s spirit.”
Our Logo
High on the rocky, desolate slopes of far eastern California, windswept and blasted raw by sand for eons, garnled but resolute, lives the most ancient trees on earth. While kingdoms florished in Egypt and Sumaria, these trees began thier lives, witnessing the whole of recorded human history. To behold a life of such grandure is humbling.
Our logo, a stylized image of the pine cone of the Bristlecone Pine, pays homage to this tree and our covenant with the material. From such a humble seed, great things may grow!
