Introducing the Boulder Furniture Collection
Furniture as Art
The city of Boulder has one of the most vibrant art communities in Colorado, and that energy shows up in the kind of clients I get to work with there. Furniture art is one of my favorite things to build, and this collection is a look back at many of the pieces inspired by Boulder’s art scene and the clients who live there. Each one was requested and shaped by the people who wanted something that didn’t exist anywhere else.
You can see the full Boulder Furniture Collection here, but I wanted to walk through what makes my favorite pieces worth talking about.
Sekijoju Bonsai Chess Table
This one started with a client who wanted a piece elegant enough to display their handmade chess set, but organic enough to feel alive in the room. I built it as a root-over-rock bonsai sculpture, wenge for the base, walnut carved and scribed into a trunk and roots that wrap around a real sedimentary stone. I spent several days carving that walnut so the roots looked like they’d grown around the rock naturally, then carved the whole assembly into a bonsai form strong enough to hold up a tabletop. The top has pull-out shelves on each side for wine glasses and captured pieces, and a mirror inlaid into the surface so the chess set does the talking.
Porthole Entry Table
This hall table came out of my ongoing exploration into metal patination. The base is wenge from Central Africa, which finishes to a deep espresso brown. Suspended between the trestles is a steel disc I treated with a blend of chemicals to give it the look of aged copper, held in a segmented ring of wenge accented with padauk. The top is a live-edge genuine mahogany slab from Saint Lucia, with bowties inlaid by hand, mallet and chisel. It’s the second piece in what I call my porthole series.
Semi Elliptical Hall Table
Made from African mahogany, with a top gilded in silver leaf and then patinated with sulfur potash to bring out contrasting colors and an aged look. The outer rim is built from segmented pieces, each one cut at a different length and angle to form that oval shape. The legs echo the same semi-ellipse before tapering down to a smaller oval foot, all shaped by hand with a spokeshave and scribed to fit the curve of the top.
Stone Meditation Bench
This bench brings the outdoors in, literally. One leg is a hollowed granite stone I ground down by hand with an angle grinder to make it manageable. I carved a peek-a-boo opening in the African mahogany seat so the stone shows through, with a hidden metal bracket underneath for support. The arch spanning from the leg to the seat is a single piece of walnut, passing through hand-cut mortises in the cross bracing. No nails, no screws. The idea for the rock came from an architect friend’s story about craning a boulder through a roof to carve into a fireplace, and the arch design is a nod to a bridge I love near Multnomah Falls in the Cascades. It’s built for exactly one person, which was the point.
Elliptical End Table 3 Tiers
This piece started as a question: what happens when you pair something precise with something organic? The top is a clean, exact ellipse in cherry, but underneath I went abstract with tiered, freely shaped shelves that echo the oval where they meet the legs. Those legs are carved to mimic calla lily blossoms, and I made the fourth leg shorter, just tall enough to support the second shelf, the same way flowers in a garden never grow to the same height. Cherry for the top and shelves, walnut for the legs, so the piece has some real visual weight to it.
What ties it together
None of these pieces look alike, and that’s the point. What ties them together isn’t a style; it’s the clients. Every piece in this collection came from a conversation with someone who wanted a piece of furniture that also worked as a piece of art, whether that meant a chess table built around a stone, or a bench meant for exactly one person to sit and think. That’s the kind of furniture I like building most.
If you’re in Boulder, Colorado, and have an idea for a piece of furniture art like this, let’s talk.
I’m the owner of Benham Design Concepts, a mixed media art studio where I design and build custom furniture and other works of art using wood, glass, stone, and various metals.
In this blog, I talk about the art I create, my journey, and the things I learn along the way.