In addition to the pieces he produced in wood and ceramics, Blunk worked in other media, including jewelry, furniture, painting, bronze, and stone.
After returning to the U.S., Blunk was eventually able to build his own home and studio near the Marin County town of Inverness, California, where he had a lifelong friendship and association with painter Gordon Onslow Ford.
Writer Monica Quock Chan, in an article on the Oakland Museum, described “Planet” as follows: “In the entrance lobby sits a circular, benchlike sculpture 13 feet in diameter.
In his Woodwork article, Glenn Adamson described “Magic Boat” as a “cradle-like nine-foot square sitting area with a rhythmic series of round projections that beckon to the hand.” Adamson characterized “Greens” as “a feat of engineering as well as a tour de force of woodcarving," a complex installation consisting in part of a “vertical redwood monolith” and “an assortment of small, rounded tables and stools.” The entire work was cut “from a single 22-foot diameter stump of redwood.” Like Blunk's “other major installations,” Adamson said, “’Magic Boat’ and ‘Greens’ encourage a feeling of community through their circular compositions and inviting shapes.”[4] In 1988, Blunk collaborated with landscape architects Ron Wigginton and Rachada Chantaviriyavit on “Wheat Walk,” a project for the University of California, Davis, Arboretum.
[7] Sculptor Isamu Noguchi characterized the contributions of JB Blunk as follows: “I like to think that the courage and independence J.B. has shown is typically California, or at least Western, with a continent between to be free from categories that are called art.
does them honor in carving them as he does, finding true art in the working, allowing their ponderous bulk, waking them from their long sleep to become part of our own life and times, sharing with us the afterglow of a land that was once here.”[8] From 1958 to 1962, Blunk, along with his then wife Nancy Waite, designed and built a redwood cabin by hand.