Mottweiler Studio is a Designer|Maker shop in Portland, Oregon engaged in the production of original and bespoke designs including mechanical designs, furnishings and home accessories, lighting, and custom plumbing fixtures. I also specialize in the design and making of cameras for analog image making.

A long-retired furniture factory in Portland, Oregon is the home of Mottweiler Studio. A selection of makers, shakers and mystery men inhabiting the second floor of building A make up the community some of us call "the Hole" - due both to its location below grade in Sulllivan's Gulch and as a none-too-subtle reference to the general state of repair of the environs. It's always an experience for visitors to find their way up here but usually worth the effort.

Engineering, art and architecture school paved the way to my pursuit of interests ranging from painting to embedded-systems programming, from photography to furniture-making to luminaire design, and from constructing buildings to constructing marginal prose. And from this checkered background sprung a curious passion for building cameras. But the act of making tools for the creative output of other artists is the true core of this endeavor.

So be sure and visit the camera pages under the Design | Make menu or the site directory in the side bar. You can also find us on Facebook and Flickr. For the scoop on the latest at the studio, sign up for our e-newsletter in the sidebar to the right.

In many an enterprise there is often an evil genius lurking in the shadows, pulling the strings and pushing the levers  . . . . .

Zane has served in that capacity for some time ( say . . . 20 years ) and is frequently acknowledged to the real brains behind the operation. He keeps a constant eye on everything from his elevated vantage point and has thus come to be known as Lord Overseer. No one escapes his watchful eye including the third member of this team my lovely wife Lisa.

While much of what goes on here is the designing and building of smaller things, you'll find other endeavors covered in these pages including the tiny but, at times, all-consuming Bungaloft project. The typical story of a remodel gone haywire, we will likely never call it finished but it is presently doing a swell job of keeping a warm and cozy roof over our heads. I have made a good bit of the lighting, cabinets and built-ins, and plumbing hardware for our house. We boldly entered our little house in the Portland Green Homes Tour in 2011 and had fun hosting a day's worth of visitors to our work-in-progress.