North Bennet Street Benefit Show Full of Surprises

I stopped by Gallery NAGA last week after setting up for the Paradise City - Marlborough show in order to see For North Bennet Street, a benefit exhibition of studio furniture makers in which 50% of the sale price goes to the North Bennet Street School, Boston's 125 year old traditional craft school with prestigious programs in furniture making, bookbinding, violin making, among others.

One would think that it would be hard to attract top quality talent for a show in which the artist only gets 25% of the sale price but this show is really a great mix of high quality work from both superstars in the studio furniture world and up-and-comers. Although Gallery NAGA selected the artists and pulled together the show, a good portion of the credit for the quality has to go to the schools executive director, Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez, whose personal relationships with with many of the artists surely influenced their decisions to participate. Here is a list of participating artists:

Garry Knox Bennett
Dale Broholm
Jon Brooks
John Eric Byers
Mark Del Guidice
John Dunnigan
Ben Fleis
Hank Gilpin
Miguel Gomez-Ibanez
Thomas Hucker
Silas Kopf
John Marcoux
Judy Kensley McKie
Bart Niswonger
Jere Osgood
Todd Partridge
Timothy Philbrick
Mitch Ryerson
James Schriber
Tommy Simpson
Rosanne Somerson
Jay Stranger
J.M. Syron and Bonnie Bishoff
Tim Wells
Steve Whittlesey
Lothar Windels
Rick Wrigley

Of all the pieces in the show, my favorite is Bart Niswonger's Green Cabinet made with ash, cast urethane, and paint. It shouldn't be surprising to see original work in a show of such talented artists, but this piece is really something different. Although I really liked it when I first saw it, it left me a little confused. I didn't realize that the ash he had carved for the panels was just used as a mold for the urethane. When the gallery director, Meg White, showed me that the panels were pure urethane, I liked it even more. On the doors and top he used the flat side of the cast on the outside, on the side panels the carved side is facing out. Ash was an excellent choice for making the mold because the grain pores are so open that it leaves a very visible grain pattern in the cast, thus the confusion on whether the doors are made of wood.

Beyond the originality of using wood as a panel mold, the patterns he carved play with the grain pattern but are not tied to it. The piece is an interesting contrast between the natural and synthetic that I felt worked really well.

Another pleasant surprise of the show is this Back of the Big House Table by Dale Broholm. I was absolutely fascinated by the simple beauty of the vertical grain fir he used for the table top.

It is hard to capture with a camera, but trust me, it is amazing.
Here is a close-up. I initially thought the top was quarter sawn ash but I checked with Dale and he corrected me. Still, this top inspires me to look for or mill myself some quarter sawn ash as well as vertical grain fir.

Another surprise of the show was seeing this table by Rosanne Somerson. From the image that the gallery used for their publicity (below) I thought it was typical coffee table size, but on entering the gallery and seeing the real thing, I found that the title, Small Table With Leaves, was really meant to emphasize the word small.

The real thing was much more unusual and powerful than I realized. In the way that a whisper demands quite to be heard, the small scale of this piece demands your attention.

17" x 15" x 15" (keys added for scale)

white oak and limestone

I also loved this table by Jon Brooks.
The curl on this table top is amazingly tight. It looks more like a wood grain print over textile than wood.
And the most fascinating thing about it is the underside. How often do you see a table that is at least as interesting to look at from underneath as from above? This piece, Citron Altar, was on loan from the collection of Mark and Juliana Phillips because Jon's entire studio, much of his personal collection of his work (including the piece he had made for this show), all his equipment, and a 40 year collection of special lumber, were tragically lost in a fire a couple of months ago. For more information, and any donations you would like to make to help him rebuild, check his site here.

Another surprise is this Scotch and a Cigar - Drink Cabinet by Ben Fleis which just gives a hint of its contents through the partial screen cabinet door.

Made with Swiss pear but also including 18 year old Glenlivet Scotch, two sipping glasses, and two Cuban cigars, the $2400 price seems more than reasonable.

I was also drawn to this off-the-wall small table, Trien, by John Marcoux, made with bass wood rulers, wing-nuts, and paint. It is a pleasant and jarring contrast to the fine furniture in the rest of the show, a little wake-up call to relax and just enjoy.
And finally, I found myself oddly drawn to these chairs by Lothar Windels. They are very austere and simple yet still well crafted. Very utilitarian but still unique. They simultaneously look like they were caringly constructed but could also be made a million more times. The contrasts make them hard to overlook.
With so many great artists in a show like this it is hard to do it justice and cover a fair percentage of it but these are the pieces that stood out the most for me. It is great to see studio furniture makers getting the attention they deserve and see the community supporting each other in making such a significant contribution to North Bennet Street School.