{"id":10668,"date":"2014-12-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=10668"},"modified":"2020-03-30T18:43:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T22:43:29","slug":"engineer-behind-alabamas-great-bear-wax-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/community-stories\/engineer-behind-alabamas-great-bear-wax-co","title":{"rendered":"The engineer behind Alabama’s Great Bear Wax Co."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI had no intention of starting a business,\u201d Jake Carnley of the largely one man candle operation Great Bear Wax Co.<\/a> tells me. He started pouring candles three and a half years ago after spending $50 on a present for a girlfriend. \u201cIt was so expensive for a candle, and I\u2019ve always been a maker. I knew right away that it was something I could have made myself.\u201d By this, Carnley means not only that he has always become extremely deft at countless crafts and repairs, but that craftsmanship itself runs in his family: \u201cMy father is a custom cabinet maker who built the house I grew up in, and my brother is a graphic designer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Great Bear is a relatively small candle company based in Birmingham, AL, Carnley\u2019s operation is expanding. This year he hired a second person and drastically increased his output. \u201cI used to pour ten pounds of wax at a time. Now I\u2019ve gone up to 75.”<\/p>\n

Carnley\u2019s candles sit in glass mason jars with labels elegantly designed by his brother, to whom Carnley surrendered complete creative control over the brand\u2019s look. But the scents themselves are perhaps what make Great Bear so unlike the scores of candlemakers selling their wares on Etsy and at flea markets. A Great Bear scent like Tobacco Bay is far more subtle and far more balanced than than the floral and perhaps too-precious aromas of high end candlemakers like Diptyque, which often leave a room smelling more like a Victorian bordello than a welcoming space. Carnley, who doesn\u2019t enjoy heavily scented candles, not only wants something a bit more masculine, but has own philosophy of how a candle should interact with its environment: \u201cI don\u2019t want it to dominate a room at all, but to add to what the room already has. I don\u2019t want someone to walk into a room and feel the rush of a candle burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"great<\/a><\/p>\n

If Great Bear\u2019s candles have notes so nearly distinct and identifiable, it is because of Carnley\u2019s process in designing scents. He begins with an idea, and then tries to reverse engineer a the scent. \u201cWth my Campfire candle, I looked for fragrances that were woody or smoky, like hickory. But when you\u2019re around a campfire, you\u2019ll notice there\u2019s also a charred smell.\u201d Carnley then balances out the charcoal with a bright note like pine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scents themselves seem to belong more to memory or experience than they do to candles. Perhaps far more abstract than Campfire is Carnley\u2019s candle named Forest, which \u00a0was designed during a hiking trip. In Alabama, Carnley explains, there is a great deal of pine. But hiking in the woods\u2014well aware that the scent of a forest is far more complex than that of Alabama pine\u2014he added herbal elements, like rosemary and mint.<\/p>\n

Carnley tinkers with a scent for a few weeks\u2014burning a countless test candles\u2014before settling on the correct ratios. He then heats 75 pounds of wax in a piece of machinery specifically designed for melting wax. Fragrances are poured into pitches, to which the wax is then stirred in. Finally, after it cools from 185 degrees to about 110, he begins the arduous task of pouring wax into individual glasses, with batches as large as 250 candles. He has it down to a science, but pausing every few moments to laugh, Carnley tells me of an early candlemaking disaster. Beeswax, he explains, is a highly flammable material that needs to be cleaned of its natural debris over a flame before it can be poured into candles. \u201cThe wax boiled over the pan and landed on the oven. I ran into the room and saw a giant fireball in my kitchen. The flame was actually touching the ceiling.\u201d It was the only time Carnley could recall actually screaming out of fear. His brother quickly ran into the room and the Carnley siblings both screamed in fear before putting out the fire out with a wet towel.\u201d No major damage was done, but Carnley switched over to soy wax shortly after.<\/p>\n

In the near future, Carnley will reintroduce beeswax to some of his products. It\u2019s important to him that the wax be sourced from local farmers in order to help contribute to the demand for the species plagued by colony collapse. He also plans to move his operation into a sleek, Airstream trailer, which he and his father are busy renovating. Carnley has ambitions not only for Great Bear, but for Birmingham itself. Every Friday, production will stop at noon and he will allow customers to come visit his trailer where his work and that of fellow craftsmen will be put on display: \u201cI want them to have a place to come sell their goods, and meet the people of Birmingham, and for the people of Birmingham to see their craft.\u201d Carnley, also a musician, intends for the Airstream trailer to host live music as well. It\u2019s a dream to which most small operations could not dedicate their time, but Carnley hopes that Great Bear will be part of a new, inclusive community in Birmingham, which has, in the last decade alone has become home to a great deal of new commerce. Carnley explains that up until a few years ago breweries couldn\u2019t operate in Alabama; with the repeal of this stipulation, Birmingham has become home to many breweries, and to companies like Carnley\u2019s. \u201cPlaces like Birmingham and Mobile and Montgomery have been under the haze of a racially segregated history for so long, and now we\u2019re seeing that mentality physically dying off, which is giving us the opportunity to pave something new.\u201d It\u2019s impossible for Carnley to continue his craft and to work away at Great Bear\u2019s future without also aiming to help stimulate what a new wave of young, communal development in Alabama. It seems almost as essential to Great Bear as detecting hints of Rosemary in a forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI had no intention of starting a business,\u201d Jake Carnley of the largely one man candle operation Great Bear Wax Co. tells me. He started pouring candles three and a half years ago after spending $50 on a present for a girlfriend. \u201cIt was so expensive for a candle, and I\u2019ve always been a maker. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1364,"featured_media":10671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe engineer behind Alabama's Great Bear Wax Co.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI had no intention of starting a business,\u201d Jake Carnley of the largely one man candle operation Great Bear Wax Co\u2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/community-stories\/engineer-behind-alabamas-great-bear-wax-co\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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