When Larry Favorite moved from Phoenix east to North Carolina 20 years ago, he left his art in Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert to be precise. Favorite creates sculptures, vases, and bowls out of ironwood, a tree found only in that desert. It is one of the desert's largest and oldest trees as well, growing up to 45 feet and living up to 1,500 years. And the ironlike wood is said to be among the planet's densest.

It used to be that Favorite, who lives in Mebane, could collect his own wood from near his home on the outskirts of Phoenix. Now he has it sent over by semitruck after it's collected on private land and at construction sites.

"Now the wood is protected. Most of what I use is 50 to 1,500 years laid dead," said Favorite, 69. "I try to keep a pretty good stock. My last delivery was 13,000 pounds, about half a semi."

He likes to have many shapes and sizes to choose from.

"I have to wait for each piece of wood to speak to me," Favorite said.

Knock on wood: Favorite was working as a mechanical engineer for a Phoenix manufacturing company in the early 1970s when he changed his life. He'd carved one small wooden sculpture from a piece of ironwood he dragged in from the desert. "It was extremely heavy," he recalled. "I worked on this thing probably a month or two, something to occupy my time. I'm extremely mechanically inclined." His marriage had ended, and he hated the corporate life. "I was really discontent with the business world and my life, so I just chucked my career. I left my job one Thursday morning, came home and changed clothes, and picked up a piece of wood and said, 'What can I do with this wood to avoid poverty?' It was touch and go for a while."

Teaching himself: Much of his talent came from his mechanical ability, he said. When he took a summer course at a high school woodworking shop, he said, "I had a very knowledgeable instructor, but when I asked, 'How do I inlay stone into wood?' he said, 'You want to build a kitchen cabinet? That I can tell you. I guess you take out enough wood so that the stone fits into that place.'" And so that's what Favorite learned to do. "I'm completely self-taught," he said. "I don't think other people had quite learned how to work with ironwood. The gem and mineral people knew how to work with just stone, and the woodworkers found it too tough to work with."

Piece by piece: "Little by little I was producing work and able to sell it at art shows in Phoenix, and the jewelry was popular with some of the gift shops, like belt buckles with inlaid turquoise, bolo ties, pendants, bracelets," Favorite said. "But if I called a store and told them I was doing stuff with ironwood, they were turned off. I finally got to point where I'd call a shop and say, 'I would like to show you something, I'll take 30 seconds of your time, and if you don't ask me to stay I'll leave.' It worked. If you see ironwood in the desert, you wouldn't think it would make good firewood. The exterior is gray and ugly." The shows and his inclusion in the Phoenix artists guild brought local and even statewide publicity. "I was very lucky," he said.

Favorite phases: To create his sculptures, Favorite uses a combination of hand tools and machines, primarily a pneumatic drum sander, a band saw and, for the inlay, a dremel rotary tool with carbide dental burrs, which he gets from his dentist. "My work keeps evolving. I started off doing mostly jewelry, then I went through a phase where I inlaid mostly silver, and now I'm inlaying mostly turquoise." Favorite runs the turquoise through an old garbage disposal to get the various sizes of chips he needs for the inlay process.

Reaching art lovers: One of the reasons Favorite moved to the Triangle, along with having a friend in Raleigh, was for marketing. "Within a day's drive you can reach half the population of the country, including a lot of good art shows." He and his wife, Bonnie, moved from Rockingham County to Mebane in 2000. "I love Mebane. It's a small town, but we have all the amenities. I can go downtown and at least five people will speak to me. My wife teases me that I should be mayor of Mebane." The artist, who still attends some festivals, is represented by galleries in cities including Santa Fe, Paris, New York, Chicago, and Golden, Colo.

Reaching artists: Favorite isn't in it only for himself. Two years ago he started Alamance Artisans, which now has about 100 members, and in 2001 he kicked off Arts at the Meadow, sponsored by the Orange County Artists Guild and the Meadowmont community, and ran that popular show for three years. "When I first started doing my art, I had some wonderful people coming in to my life, and I wanted to repay them by giving back," he said. "Also, being around artists stimulates me as an artist."

New direction: A Carolina Designer Craftsmen board member, Favorite was inspired by the guild's masterworks program, which invited members to make what they considered masterworks for their annual show Thanksgiving weekend. "At a meeting one of the artists who does tile was talking about her work and it just went 'click.' I could make ironwood tile. I told her I was going to steal her idea. So I'm making a wall hanging, 60-by-40, with 48 squares of wood, 6 inches by 6 inches, all placed on a large board as background. An inlaid tree in turquoise will go up the through the whole piece." Favorite is placing a $17,000 price tag on his masterpiece, which he'll unveil at the show. "I'm almost 70 and starting on a whole new area," he said. "We'll see what happens with this one."