Right under your nose

Just
scratch the surface and you’ll find artists and craftsmen creating home
furnishings all over our region. So why is it so hard to find their work in
local furniture and craft stores? Buyers for these stores seem to prefer work
made elsewhere. Is it snobbery? Smart marketing? Whatever you call it, it’s a
mistake. Some of the finest wood, metal, and textile work in the country is
produced here or made by artists who were trained here.

            Here’s just a small sample of
furnishings being made here. Take a look, call the artists, buy their stuff.

Wood:
Michael Souers

One
thing I’ve learned here in upstate New York, where so many wood and metal
artists live, is that some of them don’t like to be called artists. “I don’t
consider myself an artist,” Michael Souers, who makes custom furniture, says.
“I’m a craftsman. I just execute things. I enjoy working with designers,
because they have better vision than I do.”

            Maybe.

            Souers — who moved here several
years ago to study with Wendell Castle, and then opened his own shop — enjoys
working with quarter-sawn white oak the most. “I really like the way it looks
and finishes,” he says. “It has a great grain pattern.” When he talks about his
sensuous enjoyment of the medium — the feel, the finishes, the grain — he
sounds like an artist to me, but what do I know?

            Michael Souers, 889-5666,
msouers@rochester.rr.com

Lamps:
The felt queen

Christina
Selian’s lamps wouldn’t make good reading lamps, the artist admits. They’re
small — about 22 inches high — and don’t give off much light. But turn one
on and see how the light warmly penetrates the felt shade, eliciting a cozy,
glowy feeling. These lamps ($75), each in jewel-like tones with whimsical hand
stitching, appeal to the same human pleasure center that enjoys drinking hot
cocoa and stroking a purring cat. All that and color, too.

            The Felt Queen, as Selian refers to
herself, also makes doorway puppet theaters for children ($50 to $75), baby
clothes (available at Craft Company No. 6), and picture-frame kits. One lamp is
gray with playful spirals. Her favorite is red with a yellow, scalloped edge.
It could turn a bedroom into a boudoir.

            The Felt Queen, 244-6146,
meccss@earthlink.net

Metal:
Flour City Forge

Scott
Oliver spends a lot of time looking at trees. Unlike those foliage fans packed
onto tour buses, however, his leaf-peeping has a purpose.

            “I look at branches to see how the
forms of nature work,” the blacksmith says. “I’m not trying to copy a tree, I’m
trying to make something that looks like nature.”

            Twisting branches, vines, and
delicate leaves turn up in many different forms in his work. One fireplace
grate ($800) has hand-forged vines spreading out across it, and his fireplace
tools ($325 to $500) sometimes sport leafy handles.

            Oliver evokes nature in other ways,
too. Some of his candlesticks have a bronze-brown finish that echoes tree bark,
and his lamps ($400) have golden mica shades that filter light like sun shining
through autumn leaves.

            Flour City Forge, 755-8471, 200
Anderson Avenue

This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2002.