In Which I Decide to Paint on Furniture

I was making painted canvas table mats and coasters. It turned out to be a fair bit of work just to make one little mat or coaster. I enjoyed the work, but I figured my hourly pay for each one would be pretty low. My friend Joe suggested I try painting on furniture. He said people make a lot of money doing that.

It sounded like a great idea, but I didn't have the space to be working on furniture until about a year later when we moved to North Carolina. Once we got settled into the new place, I started seriously thinking about becoming a furniture artist. I really had no idea how to get started. I didn't know where to get the furniture to work on, or how or where to market the finished pieces. We didn't have enough room to store very much inventory, or even to have more than the most basic of work spaces.

It always takes me several months to begin to get my bearings when I move to a new area. I'll drive by all kinds of interesting things and think about checking them out without ever doing it. This is how it was with Era Gallery. At least once every few weeks, for almost a year, I would drive by the little orange Arts and Crafts era building, read the sign that said, "Era Gallery - 20th Century Furniture and Art", think to myself, "I should check this place out", and then keep on driving. The first time I saw the gallery from the outside, I was completely taken with it. It looked like a place where I would like to have my furniture displayed if I ever produced any. About nine months after first discovering it, I finally took the plunge and went inside.

I was greeted by Chet, the owner and director of the gallery, before I had much of a chance to look around. Chet's low-key, easygoing demeanor put me immediately at ease, and before I'd really had a chance to find out much about the gallery itself, I found myself telling him about my desire to do art furniture, describing some of my ideas, and then asking him if he thought that might be something he could consider selling in his gallery. He looked interested, and he said he thought it might be a good idea.

We spent the next hour or so talking about some of the things I had in mind, while Chet showed me several pieces of furniture that he thought might be good pieces for me to work on. Before I knew it, I was taking home a big old coffee table that was probably made in the 1960s. It was very architectural in structure, fairly massive, and was entirely covered in darkly stained pecan veneer. It had drawers on either end that, when pulled out, were for using as serving trays.