I have been designing and crafting fine furniture for sale and by commission since 1997. I earned my BFA Cum Laude in painting and printmaking from UNC–Greensboro in 1986, and have exhibited my paintings in group shows and with the Greensboro Artists’ League. In 1997, after leaving a job managing a screenprinting business, I honed my self-taught woodworking skills in Rockingham Community College’s Fine Woodworking program. Since then, my furniture has been exhibited at galleries and shows around the country.

Some of my best-selling work to date has been heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, but with a lighter, more contemporary feel. Lately I have experimented with forms rooted in the American Federal style, updated with simple lines and pared-down embellishments.

When I’m designing a new piece, I generally have a clear vision of the form itself. Then I tend to throw every embellishment I can imagine onto it: carvings and corbels, beading and bowfronts, inlays and arches. Then I work backwards to get to the simplest expression of the initial form, with a few striking details to accentuate the lines. I keep a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery near my workbench: ‘Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.’

My shop is located in a converted tobacco pack house in rural southeast Guilford County near Greensboro, NC. There, in addition to creating my own furniture designs, I build custom, commissioned work to order.