October 10, 2001
Furniture artists stay true to form
More than 400 attend show at Heritage Center
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Even the signs are cool.
No, the Leelanau Furniture Show has no shortage of creativity.
The more than 30 woodworkers and metal sculptors in the invitational show have turned mundane pieces of furniture into showpieces of a home - where everything from tables and lights to clocks and pencil holders becomes works of art.
Their work fills the Grand Traverse Heritage Center until Sunday, October 14, transforming the space with a variety of styles ranging from cutting edge modern to rustic classics.
The opening night reception Friday evening was jammed, with more than 400 people taking in the show. In its sixth year, this is the first time the Leelanau Furniture Show has been held in Traverse City, having outgrown available display space in Leelanau County.
For Bill Perkins, one of the shows four co-founders, the enthusiasm and appreciation of the attendees so far has been exciting.
"Some of the most gratifying comments I heard were on opening night when people told me they parked four blocks away just to come," said Perkins, owner of Sleeping Bear Twig Furniture in Cedar. "Traverse City is the place to have it."
It was the Leelanau Furniture Show two years ago that prompted woodworker Joe Stearns's move to northern Michigan. Working out of his garage workshop, Stearns turned his lifelong amateur hobby of woodworking into a full-time pursuit two years ago. When he and his wife, Patty, just happened on the show during a weekend trip, they realized this was where they wanted to live to pursue that dream.
"Woodworking is an outlet for a creative bent I have always had," said Stearns, whose company is called Whole Grain Designs. "As time went on I got more and more interested in woodworking and less and less interested in what I was doing."
A former city planner, urban design consultant and graphic designer, Stearns pools his varied talents into his design and production of benches, a variety of tables and a candle stand.
"I often wonder where my designs come from, there are all kinds of influences from architecture to engineering to other people's woodworking designs," he said. "My architecture background furnishes a lot of the principles: form, proportion and structural design."
Structure aside, Stearns loves the feel of wood. He relishes taking a beautiful, exotic piece of wood and shaping it into something someone can use. Calling his pieces contemporary, for lack of a better term, he has a signature curved style. By eschewing straight lines he believes he is honoring the living wood they came from.
Using a set of woodworking tools handed down from his father, Stearns now has pieces sprinkled in galleries from Leelanau County to the metro Detroit area.
"Wood is almost a sensuous thing to work with," Stearns said. "Because it is organic."
Fellow artisan Larry Nelson of Traverse City also sees a special character in wood. A former pattern maker and owner of a tool and die company, Nelson now devotes himself to making clocks the old fashioned way: one gear at a time.
Using a clock-making technology that is hundreds of years old, Nelson said he is one of only two others he knows of in the United States making pendulum and gear clocks in this way.
He makes grandfather clocks, wall clocks and mantel clocks. All parts are made of wood, including the gears which he makes from laminated cherry. In fact, he makes a point of buying locally harvested woods and promoting northern Michigan with his clocks.
"Wood has character and personality and even though I might make 250 of one model, no two are alike because of the grain," said Nelson, whose company is called Lost In Time. "Then when you see the wood move in the gears, it almost brings it to life again."