Municipal art gallery features furniture

N.H. furniture masters showcase their work in Concord; Pritam & Eames displays new work by David Ebner

{loadposition position10}

The city of Folsom, Calif., opened the doors to The Gallery at 48 Natoma in June 2007. The gallery is located in the old Folsom fire station headquarters. Throughout the year, the gallery exhibits a wide variety of art by regional and national artists as well as museum collections and national traveling exhibitions. Currently, the museum is showing 30 pieces of furniture by Jeff Hunt, Robert Koch and Gary Foster, and sculptures from David Marks.

"Our gallery is a municipal gallery owned by the city of Folsom and we're the only fine-arts exhibition gallery in this end of Sacramento County," says Cindy Abraham, gallery coordinator. "They have regional and national professional artists that exhibit their work. So we try to show a large variety of artwork and media to our community so they can have a greater exposure to arts that they would otherwise not be able to see."

Abraham previously presented a wood show at a gallery she used to work at, and sought out artists near Sacramento for this exhibition, "Fine Art in Wood and Furniture."

"Keeping with the idea of variety and something for everyone, I planned this exhibit of fine art wood as a medium and have included in it the artwork of the four artists that we have - Jeff Hunt, Robert Koch, Gary Foster and David Marks," Abraham says. "They are showing a beautiful assortment of different techniques, different styles, different pieces, from utilitarian wood pieces to pieces that are more fine-art sculpture. The styles are inspired by Asian, African, Shaker, contemporary, traditional, all different kinds of pieces. You get a great overview of the art of woodcrafting and wood sculpture."

The exhibition is free to the public and runs through Sept. 10.

Granite State exhibition

Members of the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association will place their newest creations on display in the exhibition, "Unsurpassed Artistry: New Hampshire Furniture Masters," through Sept. 16 at the New Hampshire Historical Society's library in Concord, N.H.

The exhibition showcases new pieces by the Furniture Masters in an intimate setting and offers visitors a chance to familiarize themselves with the pieces that will be available for purchase Sept. 20 at the Masters' annual auction. The exhibition features work by 18 members of the New Hampshire Furniture Masters, two guest artists and two participants in the association's Prison Outreach Program.

This year's participants include Ted Blachly, Aurelio Bolognesi, Jon Brooks, John Cameron, Tim Coleman, Jeffrey Cooper, Garrett Hack, Howard Hatch, David Lamb, Wayne Marcoux, Tom McLaughlin, Martin Milkovits, Terry Moore, Sam Norris, Brian Reid, Brian Sargent, William Thomas, and A. Thomas Walsh. This year's guest artists are Richard Oedel and Peter Turner. The two Prison Outreach Program participants are Al Eason and Eric Grant.

Founded more than a decade ago, the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association has a membership of nearly two dozen craftsmen who create studio furniture in a variety of styles.

Pritam & Eames' show

"New Furniture by David Ebner" was recently featured at Pritam & Eames in East Hampton, N.Y.

Among the pieces in the show were a mahogany lingerie chest, a stick bench in sassafras and rush, a blanket chest in sapele, library steps in curly makore, a sapele chest of drawers, an Australian lacewood and pigmented maple cocktail table, a pair of side chairs in mahogany, a book chair in sassafras and spalted maple, three stools and a footlocker in bamboo, a pigmented maple and padauk mirror with drawers, a floor lamp, table lamp and coat tree in pigmented sassafras, a red oak onion chest, a walnut console table, and a jewelry chest in mottled mahogany.

Ebner graduated in 1968 from the School for American Craftsman at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He pursued advanced studies at the London School of Furniture Design in England. He has maintained his furniture studio on the south shore of Long Island since 1973.

Ebner's work is included in the National Collection of Fine Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Arts & Design in New York, the High Museum in Atlanta, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Yale University Gallery in New Haven, Conn., The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Crab Tree Farm in Lake Forest, Ill.

Contacts

New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association. www.furnituremasters.org

Pritam & Eames, 29 Race Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937. Tel: 631-324-7111. www.pritameames.com

The Gallery at 48 Natoma, 48 Natoma St., Folsom CA 95630. Tel: 916-355-7285. www.patronsofthearts.org

This article originally appeared in the September 2009 issue.