Creating furniture has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up in New Hampshire with access to my father’s well-equipped wood shop, and a strong Yankee “make it work” attitude.
Attending the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, I learned to weld integrating steel elements into sculpture. After receiving my BFA from NYU, I moved out west to Seattle to pursue my passions for mountain biking and ski mountaineering, but soon found myself focusing on furniture once again.
While studying welding at the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle, interior designers often stopped by looking for someone to fabricate a simple component or piece of furniture — and so it began. Soon after Pratt, I opened my first shop in 1996 in the back of George Lee’s Auto Repair Shop, and started designing and fabricating furniture and installed features for the interiors of fine homes, retail and restaurant spaces throughout the Seattle corridor.
Perhaps the greatest influence on my career was meeting architect George Suyama of Suyama Peterson Deguchi in Seattle. I worked extensively on his personal residence and then on countless projects with his firm. Working with SPD strengthened my respect for the individual nature of materials, and appreciation of simple, practical, thoughtful design.
In 2008, our family took a leap of faith to follow a long held dream. I closed my very successful metal fabrication business in Seattle, and returned to New Hampshire. We bought an old farmhouse so that we could live closer to the land, do some simple farming, and rebuild my business focusing on steel and wood furniture of my own design.
The past six years have flown by. Our leap of faith to New Hampshire has paid off, and my customer base is larger than ever. I have outgrown my small barn shop, and found the Vose Farm Business Center perfect for a bigger, more efficient and more creative space. Stay tuned.
