Brad Smith

Furniture

Furniture makers frequently ride the coattails of easily recognized styles such as Shaker, Country or Arts and Crafts. In my work, I intentionally try not to be pigeonholed into an existing furniture design category. What I try to do is make furniture that has not been seen before, but still retains some familiarity. That familiarity is gained through the use of good proportions, honest construction, and old-fashioned usefulness. My basic concept is to use “off the shelf” parts in ways that were never intended—as elements in the furniture. Because the shop is located on a farm, I decided to develop that as a “theme,” which is why the parts are farm-related. The idea is to make something special out of something ordinary. Ax handles seemed to be the perfect chair leg with their gentle S-curve and knobby foot. Pitchforks make ideal supports for chair backs and they even have some spring when you lean back. Disc blades, used on farm equipment, are equally good as bases for my coatrees, lamps, and music stands. These “parts” have become significant elements in my design vocabulary and give the furniture its distinctive Bradford “look.”

– Brad Smith

www.bradfordwoodworking.com

Royce Yoder

Stoneware Pottery

I enjoy making pots! I have a BA/Art from Goshen College, Goshen, IN, 1976. Started making pots for a living in 1978 and have been in my current studio since 1982. I love the rhythm, flow, and pace of working by myself. Each day has new problems to solve and work is never dull.

There is a certain satisfaction of seeing completed pieces at the end of a day, week, month, and year. The challenge is staying fresh and not allowing the work to become routine. I am always looking to “smarten up” my work by tweaking the details of form, color and purpose. It has been a rich and rewarding career.

– Royce Yoder

www.royceyoder.com

Roberta Olah

Handmade Hooked Rugs

After twenty years in Worcester, PA, my family moved to Pennington, NJ, where I stumbled upon the local rug hooking group in 2018. Seeing their beautiful rugs and wool fabric, I knew I had to try it myself. I loved the idea of making something both useful and beautiful out of recycled wool, and although I now work mostly with new wools as my technique has improved, that appeal has never faded.

As an avid quilter with a background in architecture, I design and draw my own patterns, often incorporating quilt patterns and geometric designs into my rugs. This year I’m directing the Cape May Rugs By the Sea school at the Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, NJ — my husband Tim and I have “retired” to Cape May.

– Roberta Olah

Weezie Huntington

Handmade Hooked Rugs

I have been involved with fiber arts for 50 years. During graduate school, I took up weaving as a hobby, eventually moving to Maine to become a full-time weaver and craftsperson. I sold my work at craft fairs and in stores, and ultimately had a wall hanging displayed in the World Trade Center.

In 1990, I took up rug hooking. At first, I worked from patterns designed by others, but my creative drive wasn’t satisfied until I began designing my own patterns and dyeing my own colors. I often draw on photographs I’ve taken as inspiration for my work, and I’ve recently started incorporating gems, embellishments, and non-wool fibers into some pieces. I’m easily inspired by what I see, whether in nature or manmade.

– Weezie Huntington

Dale Roberts

Encaustic Paintings

Philadelphia contemporary painter and Tyler School of Art graduate Dale O. Roberts has been exhibiting work in the ancient medium of encaustic for over thirty-five years. A perceptual painter, he also works in silverpoint, egg tempera, gouache, and pastel, creating landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes that explore how light, memory, and decay intersect.

Dale began his art studies at Rochester Institute of Technology and earned a BFA in Painting from Tyler School of Art in 1982. While still a student, he discovered encaustic painting and found in it a way to embody both surface beauty and structural permanence.

He grew up in upstate New York, where art was far from a typical career path. “The farming community had no clue that you could make a living as an artist,” he recalls. But from the age of five he was drawing constantly, soon followed by painting, and much of his childhood was spent outdoors — fishing, building forts, and sketching from life.

That early attention to the world around him still shapes his process. “It’s about the paint,” he says. “What is there, how do I respond to it, and what happens between the paint and the panel in front of me?” Working from sketches and observations, Dale returns often to the same location, collecting sensory data through drawing and note-taking. “Those interactions — light, place, people — give fuel to the why.”

www.dalerobertsencaustic.com

Hours

November 27, 10am – 5pm
November 28, 10am – 5pm
November 29, Noon – 5pm

Location

Bradford Woodworking
3120 Fisher Road
Lansdale PA 19490