Traditional methods used to build furniture inspired by vegetables
By Camille Elebash
In his Kingston Springs studio/ workshop near Nashville, Tennessee, Craig Nutt’s main business is designing and building finely crafted furniture. But sometimes he thinks that furniture can be taken too seriously and he has become well known for incorporating vegetables in his furniture and sculpture. While his designs are firmly rooted in an understanding of traditional styles and techniques, he sometimes uses vegetables to poke fun at them.
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In his hands, a Queen Anne cabriole leg might become an asparagus spear, a carrot or celery stalk. It’s a good idea, he says, to study period furniture but not get locked into one particular style. The Smithsonian purchased his “Radish Salad Bowl.” Standing nearly five feet high, this giant radish supported by three cayenne peppers disassembles to two bowls — one on a stand — and the radish leaves become salad servers.
Nutt developed this keen sense of design while working as a restorer for a Tuscaloosa, Alabama, antique dealer. During his five years as a restorer, he saw enough broken furniture to learn the difference between good and bad construction and he became committed to crafting beautiful, yet comfortable, furniture.
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In 1977 as he was ready to spread his wings and set up his own business, he became involved in Studio Industries of Tuskaloosa. This innovative program, funded primarily by the First National Bank of Tuskaloosa, now AmSouth Bank, was created to help establish artists/craftsmen in the Tuscaloosa area, and to provide training opportunities for their apprentices. His work quickly attracted the attention of buyers.
Craig credits his degree in religious studies and psychology from The University of Alabama as appropriate background for his work, giving him an understanding of the shades of meaning in his environment. Never categorizing his designs in periods like historians, his work reflects his own ideals, innovations, beauty, humor and irony.
His ideas come from almost anywhere. King Tut launched his Egyptian designs resulting in beautifully constructed desks and tables. Long before Barney and “Jurassic Park,” dinosaurs were his passion, which he translated into furniture and sculpture.
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| Craig Nutt’s work tightly integrates ornament and structural form. |
Sometimes his pieces seem funny — sometimes bizarre, many include social commentary. One of his best-known sculptures hangs in the international concourse of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, commissioned in anticipation of the 1996 Olympics. The idea sprang from a comment then-candidate George Bush made during his campaign against Jimmy Carter. “I shall never use food as a weapon,” aimed specifically at Carter’s grain embargo. From that came a series of flying vegetable “bomb” sculptures, culminating in the Atlanta airport piece. Entitled “Corncorde,” its fuselage is a ten-foot long ear of corn with shucks as wings, carved from tulip poplar and finished with oil paint.
Woods for his furniture and sculpture are mostly domestic; cherry, walnut, maple, tulip poplar, oak and tupelo. Always considering the inherent nature of the wood, he likes poplar for his painted pieces, woods with beautiful grain like Swiss pear wood for unpainted ones.
Nutt’s shop is equipped with small industrial scale machines, some of World War II vintage. His Oliver pattern-maker weighs about two tons (used to make the Corncorde) and is about 75 years old. Less than ten percent of his work is done with machine, 80% at his bench with hand tools and the rest with power carving equipment. He uses machinery, where possible, to rough out parts efficiently and then switches to hand tools to add the detail for which his work is known.
Nutt sees his furniture and sculpture as closely related. “I look at everything as being functional as well as sculptural. Both a chair and a ‘flying vegetable’ have to work as three dimensional forms, and while they may function differently, making them function well is really a similar process.”
His work tightly integrates ornament and structural form. Historically, plant forms have been used to decorate the surface of furniture parts. In Nutt’s work the plants become the parts themselves. A tomato table is supported by a tripod of leaves, and the top is a slice of tomato with the stem and calyx still attached. The inside of the tomato is depicted with marquetry work in dyed veneer, bloodwood, maple and poplar.
While his imagery may not be traditional, his construction generally is. Mortise and tenon joints and hand-cut dovetails are mainstays. His rocking chair and onion blossom legs are steam bent, using a discarded autoclave in which hospitals sterilize equipment as a steam generator.
While a lot of Nutt’s furniture and sculpture are commissioned, most of his work is marketed through galleries, the main one being Connell Gallery in Atlanta. An Internet web page (www.guild.com)
and his own web site (www.mindspring.com/~cnutt) also attract sales. His work is so instinctive that word-of-mouth is an important marketing tool.
Nutt says he has no furniture manufacturer connection, but would not rule it out. As to his price range, he says, “It really is all over the place.” Prices start at $2,500, but most pieces are in the $4,000 - $20,000 range. Some have gone as high as $60,000. He has done sculpture projects in the $100,000 range.
