The 1,000-square-foot shed at 39 Wilson Graves Road in Shelburne may be roughly 100 miles from Boston and about 185 miles from New York City, but Timothy Coleman said the structure nestled in this town of roughly 1,900 sits in an artisan hub of its own.
“This is a great place to be located,” he said. “It’s as good as any place as far as a place to be situated, because it’s inexpensive to produce something. … It’s easy access to a lot of markets.”
Those markets include Washington, D.C., where he met a married couple that commissioned him to build a pair of tables, and Baltimore, where he planned to deliver it to them in a rented van. It’s all in a day’s work for the man who established Timothy Coleman Furniture three decades ago.
Coleman first became interested in making things as a child growing up in Barrington, R.I. He started a little workshop in his parents’ basement when he was about 10, enjoying the process of conceiving his own ideas and figuring out how to make them a reality.
“There’s so much variety in this craft. You have to be good at design, marketing, machine maintenance, engineering, finishing, photography. That’s on top of the knowledge and skill in the making,” he explained. “The variety of what I do each day keeps me engaged and energized.”
Coleman moved to Greenfield 30 years ago after marrying his wife, Mary Beth Forton. He first got set up in The Venture Center at Franklin County Community Development Corporation the following year, as one of the center’s first tenants. He later worked out of Greenfield Steel Stamp Works on Mead Street for 10 years before building his house and shop in Shelburne in 2001.
Coleman said the fine furniture market has ebbed and flowed since he came on the scene. When he started out, it was common to conceive an idea, make it a reality and put it up for sale in a gallery.
“That market was really strong. There were a relatively small but dedicated group of people who … were collectors. They wanted to have pieces from a number of contemporary makers,” Coleman said in his workshop. “It’s shifted now more to commissioned pieces, where people, they’re not as inclined to buy. They have more of a notion of what they want.”
Commissions make up 50 to 70 percent of his work every year, though all his designs are original.
“When I am creating a piece on speculation, I draw inspiration from nature to begin with. That may be in the form of a piece or with the use of surface ornamentation,” he said. “I also look to Asian design and patterns from the Arab world.”
Travel often feeds inspiration, Coleman said. A trip to Istanbul several years ago served as inspiration for a cabinet adorned with patterns that he would later make.
Coleman’s workshop, adorned with posters of artists such as Miles Davis and Bob Dylan, is also lined with the tools of his artisanal trade. His machines include a thickness sander, a bandsaw and 100-year-old jointer, which flattens one side of a board.
On his workbench, Coleman has a caliper to measure thickness, chisels and several hand planes — which smooth and shape his projects — that he made as a student at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, Calif., in the 1980s. Coleman said James Krenov, who founded the fine woodworking program at his college, believed artists who made their own hand tools crafted furniture with greater sensitivity and care.
Coleman explained his creative process while he worked on the commission for two specialty tables — with chess and backgammon boards inlaid onto them — for the married couple he met in Washington, D.C., who later visited his Shelburne studio to discuss wood options with him.
The craftsman used a blend of finesse and caution with a DeWalt scroll saw to practice cutting points (the elongated triangles on a backgammon board) out of a piece of wood, using a scalpel-like X-Acto knife to free the tip from the acute angle. He said he would practice several times to determine the proper blade size to use, and to develop technique and muscle memory.
The tables consist of quilted maple, East Indian rosewood and bubinga. Coleman said he gets the majority of his wood from Forest Products Associates on Oak Hill Road in Greenfield.
Most of Coleman’s customers, many of whom are from the Pioneer Valley, are on the East Coast. If he’s known for anything in particular, Coleman said, it would be for the surface ornamentation techniques he employs and for decorative cabinets, having made dozens over the years. He said they are often complex and technically challenging pieces that require a high level of skill and persistence.
The most challenging aspect of making furniture, he said, is being comfortable with the pace of a project, because the work often takes longer than expected. Rushing, though, leads to mistakes that add even more time. Coleman said he often puts 200 to 400 hours into a project.
He said his line of work can result in some mean splinters, and cuts and nicks from tools.
“The hazards are obviously great when working with these machines. But usually, the people who have been injured, it’s bad habits, a bad habit to begin with — not learning something correctly — and, second, just moving too fast, being rushed,” he said. “And it happens to everybody. You’ve got a deadline and you’re working late and you lose your attention.”
Outside of his work with Timothy Coleman Furniture, Coleman also writes for Fine Woodworking magazine, teaches classes with the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, conducts workshops out of his shop, and is a member of New Hampshire Furniture Masters. Through his involvement with the organization, Coleman said he hopes to “educate people in the craft of furniture making, to pass it down and keep the traditions alive.”
To learn more about Coleman’s work and to view examples, visit his website at timothycoleman.com.
Domenic Poli joined the Greenfield Recorder in 2016. He covers Sunderland, Whately, Conway and Deerfield. He can be reached at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.