New Website!

I'm really happy to announce the launching of a new website: The Spellbound Furniture Works Store e-commerce site. It features my current inventory of contemporary furniture pieces available for sale. Shipping is free from my Crested Butte, CO studio to the continental United States.

This new site has been in the works on and off for many months. This is largely because I built it myself and I am not really a website builder. When I say "built it" I guess what I really mean is I found things available out there on the interweb and put them together to do what I wanted. I didn't start from scratch and have to learn how to write code or anything like that, although I did have to modify some of it. I stumbled quite a bit along the way, and got some advice from friends here and there, particularly Troy Parker, a photographer and mixed media artist who is very tech savvy. Thanks Troy! You can check out some of Troy's work by clicking here. In the end I'm pretty happy with how my website turned out. If you check it out and have any feedback, I'd love to hear it, positive or not.

On another note, the new Guild Sourcebook of Art volume 24 has been published and I am one of the included artists. There is also an online version - click here to see my page. This weighty volume contains lots of cool work by artists from around the country. Its mission is to be a bridge between people looking for a certain kind of art and the artists who create it.

Thanks to everyone who has already looked at my new website and sent me feedback. I really appreciate it.

Kraus Guitars

Are you looking for a new guitar? If so, you should check out these beauties made by my old friend Bill Kraus. Each one is painstakingly handcrafted in his shop near Lockport, NY.
The level of craftsmanship in these instruments is not often found these days, and it is apparent not only in their looks but also in their amazing sound.

I have known Bill since 1973 when, on my first day of third grade in a new school in a new neighborhood my family had just moved to, our teacher, Mrs. Suggs, asked the class to write something in cursive longhand. Being new to the terminology, I had no idea what she was talking about, so I started to look around to see what the other kids were doing. The kid behind me picked up on the fact that I was completely lost, and catching my eye as I looked behind me, he said in a loud voice "What, don't you know cursive?". That was Bill.

For some reason that still escapes me, we became friends. As teenagers, when we weren't busy getting into trouble, we spent many hours playing guitar and listening to music. I always figured Bill would go on to a career in music, as a musician, but after a rather circuitous path he found his music career as a luthier. He's really well suited to it.

You can see more of Bill's work by clicking here. I can't recommend these guitars highly enough.

What's New

After a bit of a hiatus and some much needed down time and family time, I'm back to blog world. Look for more frequent posts on a variety of subjects.

Before I dive into what's new, I want to thank Jos and Teresa Rijks for having me back as a guest artist for the August Artwalk, and Janet Farmer for buying the rest of the first batch of Huckle vases.

What's new...


My new work, including the sprout clothes trees and other pieces from last summer's show season have been added to my website. You can see a slide show of the model making for the sprout base in a previous post. The sprouts have cast concrete bases, and so are very sturdy for their small footprint. The wooden stems of those pictured are, from left to right, curly hard maple, cherry, and curly soft maple. The "buds" are stainless steel rods that function as hooks. The sprouts have a 10" diameter base and are 58" tall. You can see the current inventory of the sprouts and other available work in the available pieces gallery on my website.

A few months ago, I was talking to my friend Rick Harrington who said he'd like to see more detail images of my work on my website. I thought it was a great idea, and so I've added a new details gallery to the site. I would value any feedback you may have on this new gallery.

And the winner is...

Earlier this month at both the Crested Butte Art Festival and the Telluride Festival of the Arts I offered a chance to win a Huckle Vase in a drawing which was held last Tuesday, August 18. This helped me to connect with people who are interested in my work and also gave people the chance to win something. The Huckle Vase is a new piece for me this summer, so new that it hasn't been photographed yet. It is a cast concrete bud vase with a fluted texture cutting across a smooth surface with a wooden strip set into it. Like many of the pieces I've been working on, it plays the smooth refined wood against the coarser concrete. The name comes from a character in a Richard Scarry children's book, who's name my son has given me as a nickname. The winner of the drawing was Kirk DeVincentis of Montrose, CO. Congratulations Kirk!. For those of you who didn't win, I will have three more vases with me at Rijks Family Gallery tomorrow evening, 8/27, where I will be featured as a guest artist for Art Walk from 5:00 - 8:00 pm. I hope to see you there!

Telluride Festival of the Arts

I'm in Telluride, Colorado for this weekend's Festival of the Arts in Mountain Village, which is a short (as well as free and beautiful) gondola ride from town. My friend Jonathan Augello, who is an architect here in Telluride, was kind enough to let me stay with him for a few days. It's great to get to catch up with him a little. We don't get to see each other so much since he moved from Crested Butte.

The Telluride festival is interesting in that it is a smaller festival (at least in terms of the number of artists) featuring the work of about 50 visual artists along with food and wine vendors. Instead of being arrayed down a single street, the festival winds its way through the core of Mountain Village intermixing artist's booths with food and wine booths. There's a free Joan Osborne concert tomorrow night from 5 - 7 that I hope to be able to hear some of from my booth location.

If you're lucky enough to find yourself in Telluride this weekend, and you like art, fine food and good wine, be sure to check it out.

Down Time

It's been a really busy summer so far. I've been working on some commissioned pieces and getting ready for art festivals, and my wife, Alison, a talented photographer who focuses (really bad pun intended) on portraits and weddings has been much in demand. All this work has left Oliver wondering what's up, so we decided to take him camping this past weekend, the first one we've had free all summer. We spent a couple of nights in Erickson Springs on the other side of Kebler pass. Guitars were played, hikes were hiked, marshmallows were roasted and a good time was had by all, particularly Oliver who found some really gooey black mud next to a little swimming hole on the river.

This morning we packed up and headed into Paonia, about a half hour away, to go to Orchard Valley Farms to pick some fresh veggies. Our timing was good, and although the peaches aren't ready yet we came home with a whole bunch of Thai and Italian basil and some fresh peppers to roast, as well as a bunch of other things. We're all big basil fans - even Oliver who had pesto for dinner last night - so we're hoping to make enough pesto to last a few months. We also like roasted peppers quite a bit, so the fresh anaheims were a welcome sight!

It's back to the studio tomorrow, but the down time sure was nice. This week I'll be getting ready to head over to the Telluride Festival of the Arts, which takes place next weekend, 8/14 - 8/16.

Process: Sprout Model

Here's a sneak preview of part of a piece I'm working on for the CB Arts Festival. This slideshow is of the making of a model for the cast concrete base of a piece called "sprout". The model is made of styrofoam and modeling clay and was really fun to make. I've carved models out of wood for previous pieces, but the relative ease of working with clay, particularly the ability to stick material back on if you remove too much, has me sold.

Fester

This morning, before the day's rain moved in, Oliver and I set up the new art festival tent in the yard to get familiar with assembling the 900 or so parts that make it up. It went together great and took only a little longer with Oliver's help than it would've alone. He had fun digging holes under the tent to look for worms.

I'm looking forward to the two festivals I'll be participating in next month, and setting up the new tent made me realize just how soon August will be here. The first fest is the Crested Butte Arts Festival taking place on Elk Avenue in Crested Butte August 1st and 2nd. The second event is the Telluride Festival of the Arts taking place in Telluride's Mountain Village August 14th, 15th and 16th. Click the links to their websites for lists of participating artists and schedules of festival events.

I'm working on some new pieces that I'll be showing at the CB festival. You can check back here in the coming weeks for some sneak previews of the work. I'm very psyched that once again my old friend Richard Harrington will be participating in the CB festival and staying with us for a few days. Rick is an amazing painter and printmaker whom I met many years ago when I lived in Rochester, NY. We used to spend a lot of time whitewater kayaking together, something he still does a little of. He will be in a double booth this year, space #43 & 44, on the corner of Elk Ave. and Third Street. I'll be right next to him in booth #45. Come check it out.

Studio Sale at LCE Fine Arts Studio

Laura Elm and Carol Connor will be having a Studio Sale at Laura's studio, LCE Fine Arts Studio, located at 822 Whiterock in CB, this Thursday, June 25, from 10 am to 4 pm. You'll be able to see (and purchase) original works in a home setting rather than a gallery, and get a good feel for how the piece might look in your home. Check it out!

The Peak magazine

The fine people at the CB News included an artist profile of me in the first issue of their new publication The Peak magazine. To view it on line, click on the link, then click on the "view magazine" tab and then select pg.34-35. Also featured in this issue are Ben Eaton and Heather Peterson. Thanks to the News for a cool resource for home owners and buyers in the Crested Butte Area!

Gallery Changes

After many years of being represented by various galleries, I've decided to pull back and mostly go it alone, at least for a while. This will be the last week to purchase my work from Shidoni. Beginning on Tuesday 6/23/09, I will no longer be represented by them. I wish them the best.


As of today, 6/15/09, the nature of my relationship with the Rijks Family Gallery in Crested Butte has changed. They will continue to show my work in their online gallery, but I will no longer have pieces in the physical gallery. I want to send out a very big thank you to Jos and Teresa Rijks for the years of support and floorspace they have given me. They have been a pleasure to work with and I look forward to our new arrangement as another chapter, rather than the end of the story.

I'm really excited to be selling my work on my own. It gives me much greater flexibility in my marketing, and the ability to offer my clients the best possible value when buying a piece.

You can see my inventory on my website by clicking on the galleries tab and looking in the available pieces gallery.

Mixed Media

Wood, concrete and stainless steel have been a recurring material theme in a lot of my work lately. I've had a lot of fun experimenting with concrete over the past few years, and this piece provided a good opportunity to make some larger parts with it. Most of the steel parts I've incorporated have been very simple accents, partly because that's what the designs wanted, and partly so I could accomplish the work with the equipment and metalworking skills I have. As the design for this piece evolved (see the post from 2/25/09 for more on that), it became clear that fabricating the prominent steel parts was going to require the help of a skilled metalworker. None of the metalworkers I like to work with in Creted Butte specialize in stainless steel work, so I called on my friend Doug Cernonok of DC-Tek in Atlanta for help. Doug does a lot of work with stainless steel, and he and I have talked about doing a project together for a few years. This was the perfect opportunity. He did a great job turning my design into some very well executed parts. I look forward to working with him again.

Concrete

For many years, wood has been the primary material I work with, and I would say that is still true. Over the past ten or twelve years I have been incorporating other materials like steel, glass and concrete into my work when a design calls for it, generally as accents. A few pieces have approached the half and half point between wood and some other material, but the Monolith Bench is the first piece I have ever made without incorporating any wood. Partly it was an exercise to explore a new direction, but mostly it was just how I saw the piece. To me this seems like a natural evolution as a furniture maker. Expanding the range of materials I work with has sometimes pushed me out of my comfort zone and presented many new technical challenges, both good things in my opinion, but, more importantly, it has greatly opened up the possibilities of what I can do, which in turn has fueled many new ideas. It has also led me to some interesting collaborations with other artists when my skills with a material weren’t a match for my ideas. Approaching a project as a furniture maker rather than strictly as a woodworker and selecting materials that are true to my vision of the piece is, for me, a much more satisfying way to create. I won’t be selling my chisels any time soon though.

Influential Dog

As a follow up to yesterday's post, here's a photo of one of the dogs who influenced the design of the console table. Although a side view might have given a better idea of the dog/ table shape relationship, this is what I have.

Slacker

Wow! Clearly making Blog entries is not my strongest attribute. In the 2 1/2 months since I last wrote, I've been busy. Just before Christmas, I completed a commission for some clients in Crested Butte. Here's a photo of the Console Table I made for them.

This piece is made of Curly Sugar Maple from a great board I cut into veneer, and it has Ebonized Sugar Maple legs. I think the design was subconsciously influenced by the client's dogs. More on that later.

I've also been working on a commission for another client. It's a pair of Dining Tables which can be used independently, or pushed together to make one large table. Here are some digital renderings of the pieces.

The tables are made of concrete, stainless steel and wenge. Each piece will weigh about 450 lbs., so pushing them together may not be that easy! They should be complete by the end of next week, so check back for photos.

Also in the works right now is companion end table that will be across the room from the console table pictured above, as well as a couple of speculative pieces for shows and galleries.

As always, thanks for your interest.