Handy Craft: Former business manager finds joy in creating furniture that is also art

Bayley Wharton has built a furniture business out of his reverence for thoroughness and clean lines, and his ability to leave natural beauty alone.

When he works with wood, he uses no artificial stains and sparingly uses hand-rubbed oil and lacquer.

“I have a motto: ‘Let the wood speak for itself,’

” said Wharton, a maker of fine furniture whose company, Furniture by Design, produces tables, beds, cabinets, mirrors and benches.

Wharton, 45, who is a Winston-Salem native, recently moved from Raleigh to Mount Airy with his wife and son. The move brought them closer to family but also allowed Wharton to become a member of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild, which promotes crafts of the Appalachian Mountain area.

A few years after he graduated from N.C. State University, Wharton used his business-management degree during a short stint at a large furniture-maker. There, he learned a lot about the business of mass-producing furniture, but the management part of it left him feeling unsatisfied.

It gave him some ideas, though, he said.

At one point, he had access to a woodworking shop away from work.

“I liked doing it as a hobby … but I had no style,” Wharton said. “Then my sister gave me a book on the art of Japanese joinery.”

He eventually went to graduate school and studied design.

And in 1996, he started a furniture business that could marry craftsmanship with artistry. Wharton, who is also a member of the Piedmont Craftsmen in Winston-Salem, works alone in his shop and sells his pieces through juried crafts shows throughout the United States.

“You look at a lot of art and architecture … and you see conceptually something that seems simple. When you get up close and see the details, it becomes very intricate,” said Wharton, whose work is heavily influenced by Old World Japanese design.

Handmade items, including those made with tools in which the hand manipulates them, are the primary focus of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild, which has more than 900 members in North Carolina and eight other states.

The hope is that, by promoting the artists and their pieces, these crafts will continue for generations to come, said Rebecca Orr, who works for the guild in Asheville.

“We do feel that in our mechanical-minded technology world that the hand element is fading,” Orr said. “And, of course, we have so many imports to compete with. That is a hard thing. We had an instance a few years back of quilts coming from China…. When you consider the time put into making quilts by hand, we couldn’t compete.”

Wharton said that most of his customers come from the juried craft shows that he travels to, and those people are often looking for items that have a handmade quality to them.

He often uses curly maple as well as cherry and other hardwoods.

“There are no two boards alike. They are like snowflakes,” Wharton said.

He has thought about adding employees to the business and expanding, but it always leads him to think about the things that he might have to give up. “I constantly debate that subject in my mind,” said Wharton, who plans to keep it small. “I would become a manager again, and I would be running the business and never get my hands in the sawdust.”

Source: www.journalnow.com