Design New England - May/June 2016

artisan

It is a long journey from tree to fine furniture. Cameron stalks lumberyards for intriguing wood, but sometimes it finds him, as when Markham Lumber in Essex, Massachusetts, called to say it had a log with his name on it. Cameron will even rescue pieces from the wood stove in the nearby home he shares with his wife, graphic designer Ann Conneman. The couple met when he was part of a cooperative on Congress Street in Boston and she worked upstairs at Peter King + Co. When the area became gentrified 10 years ago, the couple moved to Gloucester, where he found his current space in a building with other craftspeople and artists.

In one corner of his workshop, 17 clamps hold a piece of laminate, thin layers of wood fused together, making them stronger than a single piece of wood of the same density. Using hand tools he learned to make at Redwoods, Cameron will shape the laminate into a leg for one of his Crane Chairs, named for its elegant avian lines and built to respond to the body with a welcoming flex in the back splat. In another corner is a cast-iron veneer press, which looks like a torture device and is so large that Cameron must climb on top to tighten the screws.

For all this vigorous treatment, the results are as sleek as glass. “Smooth surfaces are about planing,” says Cameron. “Much less sanding than you would think.” He never uses stain or pore-clogging polyurethane on his furniture. Instead, he enhances the natural beauty of wood with a natural substance, shellac, a resin secreted by the female lac bug. His sole nod to decoration is his use of the metal escutcheons he designs and engraves himself, although metal is also sometimes used for cabinet legs. Starting with wood, he carves the legs, then has them cast in bronze before grinding

Cameron stalks lumberyards for intriguing wood, but sometimes it finds him, as when Markham Lumber in Essex, Massachusetts, called to say it had a log with his name on it.