In the loft of the barnlike artists’ cooperative in Kakaako that houses his studio, Werk Arts, Barret Werk was making a bike frame out of Oahu-grown bamboo. As he described how he connected the pieces, first scraping them clean and then cutting them to match the metal joints, it summoned memories of anatomy class: The long, hollow stalks had the look of old bones.

Why bamboo? “It’s pretty strong and pretty light — and it’s so pretty,” Werk replied with a smile. “And we’re here in Hawaii (where it’s grown), so why not?”

One of Werk’s bamboo mountain bikes, along with a pair of koa bar stools and a monkeypod table with bamboo legs, is in Hawaii’s Woodshow, the annual juried exhibit on view through Oct. 2 at the Honolulu Museum of Art School. He will also give a free bamboo bike-making demonstration at the art school from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, showing “the process from start to finish: how to shape the joints, how they’re bonded and wrapped with natural linen (a replacement for fiberglass).”

For the bike frames, he uses a variety called black bamboo, Phyllostachys nigra, “because (the stalks are) so long and the nodes (knots) are really far apart — which gives a clean look — and the fewer nodes it has, the lighter and stronger the bamboo,” said Werk, who is tall and slender and wears his wavy brown hair in a bun.

“But without any nodes it was almost too clean-looking,” he added, “so I redid it with a couple of nodes and now it looks like bamboo.”

The bike in the show, like the one he was building, used split bamboo and koa. “Wood and bamboo is a cool mix, beyond the capability of one material alone,” he said. “Bamboo is equivalent to the hardest of woods, yet super thin.” Koa, he added, is uniquely beautiful.

Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, the 41-year-old Werk moved to Oahu in 2009 after apprenticing with woodworkers Parks & Parks in Hawi on Hawaii island. He had become committed to bicycling as “carbon-free transportation” and using “eco-healthy” materials like salvaged/renewable wood and bamboo, a fast-growing grass, during his training in organic agriculture, including eight years of volunteering on a Hawaii island farm.

In May, a monthlong trip with his girlfriend riding bicycles and visiting relatives in Denmark, where his father is from, provided Werk with inspiration. The eight-speed bike in the wood show has all its gears contained inside a hub, something he saw on Danish models. That keeps the mechanism cleaner and gives a sleek, simpler look.

Next, he plans to make a bamboo version of the cargo bikes that are popular with families in Denmark; these have elongated frames with a cart affixed between front wheel and handlebars that carries groceries, children and/or a spouse.

During a clear patch in the rainy Hawaiian afternoon, Werk took one of his bikes for a spin, gliding through the puddles with an infectious smile.