Peter Shepard is a studio furniture maker. Studio furniture is typically made one piece at a time by a skilled craftsman who has a thorough technical knowledge and reverence for wood and woodworking as well as some formal or informal art education. Studio furniture makers are artists/craftsmen like Peter, who pursue their own design, style, motifs, and methods. The furniture is not distributed through ordinary retail outlets. It is sold through art and craft galleries or shows, commissioned by patrons, or purchased directly from the maker.

A career in woodworking had appeal to Peter who left the world of publishing over a decade ago. He took time out to renovate an old home in Newton, MA before moving to Harvard where he has now lives and has his one-man studio. He has always enjoyed working with his hands and had spent time in college working as a carpenter. Before going out on his own, he researched the requirements for becoming a custom builder of furniture and then participated in a cabinetmaking pilot program at North Bennet Street School in Boston where he learned a range of techniques. He also worked as an apprentice to Boston-area woodworker John Reed Fox.

In addition to learning a whole host of wood working skills Peter explains, "I learned how to market what you make, meaning either you work through galleries, hang a shingle, or sell directly to buyers through juried craft shows. The craft show circuit made the most sense, so I spent my first year in a co-op in West Concord making five pieces, the minimum needed to apply to shows." Early on in his career, Peter was accepted to the prestigious Smithsonian Craft Show and won an honorable mention which helped him realize that he was on the right track and that his work was appreciated. In this business, Peter explains, "The key is to find the people who appreciate your uniqueness, or at least can tolerate it in their house." He has exhibited at shows in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, St. Paul and New York City. Most of his clients are from these areas outside of the Northeast.

Sideboards, bureaus, and cabinets have been the mainstay of his work, as well as tables (large, expanding ones and small ones), and pieces that derive from tables, like benches or stools. His designs are influenced by a fairly eclectic range of things (animals, show girls, bridges), and the designs that work succeed best by fusing elegance with usefulness. "I hate describing my own work. But it really comes down to this: each piece acknowledges a certain bloodline; it has its historical root. It doesn't stop there, but hopefully it knows when to stop."

His process starts with drawing. "I begin with sketches, which try to capture on paper a sense of what a former shop mate of mine called the gesture of the piece. I don't draw very well, but I get a lot of ideas at this stage. I get a sense of what the piece is supposed to do and how it feels and I keep at it until I have something that I know would be a fun thing to do and something that I want to get absorbed in doing." Once he is confident that he has what he needs from his drawings, Peter creates a full-scale drawing to work out the details.

One useful distinction between studio from production furniture is the way in which wood is selected and used. Studio furniture makers, like Peter, will build a piece from a single log (or flitch), which eliminates variations in color and figure that almost always occur between different logs of the same species. Production furniture assembles pieces from parts that come from a variety of boards. Further, a lot of effort goes into deciding which part of any given board goes into which part of the piece. The curve in a board's figure will follow the curve of a table's apron, for example; tops are book-matched, creating a seamless unity of material and design. This last step is entirely skipped in mass produced furniture.

While woodworking machinery garners an immense amount of interest among the woodworking populace, it's really the hand tools that are essential to the process. "I think of the big stationary machines, the jointers and planers, the table saw and band saw as my little army of assistants, like apprentices. Their job is to get me to my bench, where the bulk of the work goes on, quietly, when I can actually hear the radio." Peter works with both western and Japanese hand tools, favoring saws and chisels from Japan, planes and scrapers from Maine, and rasps from France. He likes water stones for sharpening.

Peter enjoys seeing and hearing how his pieces are used. He also finds his work very satisfying. "The biggest thrill is the independence that I have--that I can structure my day the way I want to. Every part of the piece is in some ways a part of me. I alone am responsible for how it looks and how it works and that is also what I like a lot."

Peter's furniture ranges from $1,200 to $10,000. Sales are from commissions and show orders. If you are interested in his work and would like to know more, send email to petershepard@charter.net.

Note:The upholstered piece (below) is a reproduction of a footstool in the Adams' house in Quincy that Peter was commissioned to build for a birthday gift to Sandra Day O'Connor. The pattern on the seat is taken from the ceiling tiles in the Supreme Court building in Washington. It was embroidered by Suzanne Horton-Foot, who is known for doing exquisitely detailed Medieval scenes in thread.