This is the 10th year that furniture maker Jeff Soderbergh will exhibit at the Fine Furnishings & Fine Craft Show in Providence, where he said he usually lines up 12 to 18 months of commission work from this event alone.
“I design and build custom high-end furnishings using reclaimed historical materials,” he told Providence Business News. “This show brings in clients who are highly motivated to find something personal and unique, and want to take the time to find the right piece for their home or business.”
Soderbergh is one of approximately 150 artists and artisans who will present their work at the 13th annual show slated for Oct. 24-26 at the R.I. Convention Center. Many of the exhibitors are from Rhode Island and Massachusetts, but others come from states such as Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to show organizers.
Working out of a Middletown studio, Soderbergh uses architectural pieces salvaged from demolished factories, schools and homesteads, primarily in the Northeast, to create distinctive tables, bedsteads, mirrors, lamps and chairs, as well as smaller home accent pieces like coasters, candle-holders and bowls. “I want to take something from an era where craftsmanship and detail were paramount, and make it part of someone’s own personal surroundings,” he said on his Web site, www.jeffsoderbergh.com.
To Deborah Goldhaft, of Fire & Ice Studio in Pawtucket, the Providence show is one of the best surviving examples of its kind in the U.S. A New Jersey native, she came to Rhode Island in 2004, after living many years in the Pacific Northwest, and specializes in art glass work for home and office, including tables, lamps, windows and doors. She is a graduate of the 2007 Power Up! class at the Center for Women & Enterprise in Providence.
“This show is a very important part of my business,” said Goldhaft, who’s exhibited each of the last four years. “For me, it’s exposure. It gives me recognition, people see me every year and it reminds them I’m here.”
The Providence show is “one of the few” in which Goldhaft exhibits because, she said, the local show “is very high quality and pulls people from all over the Eastern seaboard and the Midwest. It’s well worth [my] time and the money.” She noted that the Providence event, unlike other shows, will rent half-sized booths at what she called a “reasonable” price.
Show manager Karla Little, a former art teacher, said she started the nonjuried invitational show in 1996 “to be a showcase for handcrafted furniture.” The relationship between a furniture maker and client tends to be long-term due to the nature of the product, she noted, and she invites the artisans each year so they have the opportunity to meet potential customers in person.
Cost to rent a regular-sized 10×10 booth with all the amenities is $975, so a half-booth would be half of that, $487.50.
Simplicity and functionality are the keys to the custom furniture that Corwin Butterworth creates in a small Wakefield shop, he said. He draws inspiration from Scandinavian, Asian, Shaker and contemporary American furniture. His pieces include tables, beds, sideboards, cabinets and desks, as well as smaller items like boxes, spice racks and cutting boards.
“This will be the third year I have done the fine furnishings show [in Providence], and I find it to be a very valuable way to get more customers,” Butterworth told PBN. Although he has sold only one piece at the show in the last two years, he said the local event brings him “a lot of orders” and the opportunity to make personal contacts he finds more effective than advertising. “I got about five months’ worth of work from last year’s show alone,” Butterworth said. •
