Totally ingrained

Woodworkers polish their creativity while building custom furniture

Woodworker Lewis Neidhardt of Sherwood clamps cherry and maple woods into a jig to create a wooden tray.
Woodworker Lewis Neidhardt of Sherwood clamps cherry and maple woods into a jig to create a wooden tray.

— Buying furniture is a daunting task. Imagine building your own furniture.

How do you choose a style, which wood or what finish looks best in your home?

Woodworkers around the state take on these challenges regularly for themselves and clients while creating one-of-a-kind, custom tables, cabinets, desks and chairs.

Many create furniture that is considered artwork in itself;

others tread a traditional path. In Arkansas there isn’t a predominant style of furniture being built.

That’s because the state lacks the furniture-making traditions of the Northeast, according to Craig Young, a Fayetteville woodworker.

“This area doesn’t support the passing down of traditional furniture or ‘studio furniture’ as the Northeast states do,” Young says. “They have kept the European working craft tradition alive with the help of savvy clientele and monetary support for

their work.” That no such tradition exists here may be a good thing considering the wide variety of styles available to those wishing to buy or commission a custom piece. Joe Doster of Harrison, for example, creates furniture with modern simplicity that draws on Celtic, Asian and Appalachian influences. The team at Dryad Studios in Green Forest, on the other hand, turns out handmade Arts and Crafts style furniture.

Some furniture makers go by the principle that the wood determines what type of design you devise. “I really like exploring the relationship between the natural textures of things before they’re made smooth and the natural shapes from the wood before it’s been straightened out,” says Doug Stowe, a woodworker and author of seven how-to books on woodworking.

“I like the way the wood is a natural storyteller just like human beings are storytellers.

Wood records everything that happened in the life of a tree, so it’s really engaging from a narrative standpoint.”

Other furniture variations ranging from Swedish-born woodworking teacher Mia Hall’s love for minimalism and Scandinavian modern design to Lewis Neidhardt’s passion for the mid-20th-century American furniture of Sam Maloof and George Nakashima exist within the state.

Each Arkansas furniture maker brings his own style and influences to the table. Ultimately, however, style and form are typically influenced by the customer.

THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT

“It’s not often that a customer trusts a furniture maker with the outcome of a piece,” Stowe says.

“It’s not often that they’re willing to engage their home in that type of experiment.”

Hiring a woodworker to build custom furniture is an experiment of sorts. It requires the client and the craftsman to be on the same page, to agree on the same design and to inevitably approve the finished product. Very little speculative furniture sells in Arkansas, so custom is the name of the game for furniture makers who want to succeed, according to Stowe and other furniture makers.

“When you commission a furniture maker to do something, there’s often a lot of insecurity about what it’s going to look like,” Stowe says. “Customers wonder, ‘If it doesn’t look the way I expect it to, then what? Can I return it?’”

But, there are ways to get around a customer’s apprehension. Photos and ideas are exchanged. Sketches, and sometimes models, are made.And eventually, hopefully, everyone agrees on a design.

“Usually, the design process is a collaboration. People will have an idea of what they want. A lot of times they will have seen work that I’ve done in the past and we’ll work off that,” says Neidhardt, of Sherwood. “Or they’ll bring me a photograph and say, ‘Can you make something like this?’”

Once a design is agreed on, it’s time for the furniture maker to get to work.

There are many different styles of woodworking. Some woodworkers like Doster prefer to do most of their work using chisels or other hand tools. Others like Neidhardt, who worked as a machinist for 20 years, turn to an electric table saw and router. Most woodworkers use some combination of power and hand tools.

How derivative a furniture maker is willing to be depends on the woodworker. Some like Stowe insist on not replicating the masters, while others like Neidhardt will re-create most any style or piece. In the end, the portfolios of many Arkansas furniture makers may reflect their clients’ taste as much as their own. Even then many furniture makers must find outside ways to supplement the income from the craft to make a living.

DON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB

“I don’t have to depend on the sale of furniture to make a living anymore,” Doster says. The woodworker once traveled the craft fair circuit from Wisconsin to Houston, Denver to North Carolina each year selling his butcher blocks and cutting boards. Now, he teaches computer-aided design at North Arkansas College in Harrison.

Doster can finally create just for his own family and circle of friends. It’s an experience he finds peaceful. “When I’m in the shop, the whole world goes away,” he says.

Many woodworkers find themselves teaching to pay the bills. Stowe created the “Wisdom of the Hands” program at the private Clear Spring School in Eureka Springs, where he lives. The program is designed to get children to use their hands more while they’re learning.

That includes time spent in the wood shop.

Stowe also teaches the subject on informational videos by Taunton Press with a third set due to be released in March.

He also teaches workshops around the country at various craft and arts schools including the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indiana.

“A lot of [woodworkers] end up going into custom cabinetry or custom carpentry,” says Hall, an assistant professor of furniture design and woodworking at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

“There’s not necessarily a job waiting out there. You have to be pretty creative with what you’re going to do when you get out of our program.”

HomeStyle, Pages 37 on 12/31/2011

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