recent months, keeping some higher-priced pieces from getting as many bids as last year. The auction, however, serves as more than just a formal bidding event: It also gives the artisans an opportunity to meet and sell to customers. After watching two couples make unsuccessful bids for his table, Moore said, he walked over and got commissions to make the same piece for them.
Patrons are pleased to help the furniture makers gain a wider audience, while getting close to the creative process. "Many of these people (the makers) live off the beaten track, and the public really doesn't know about them," said Jill Wilson, who along with her husband, Robert, has bought several pieces for their home outside Concord. She adds: "The prices are excellent, compared to high-end, commercial furniture, and they are better made."
This year's auction was held Sept. 19 in a tent outside the state historical society, at the end of a traveling exhibition that visited Boston and Portsmouth. The event began with remarks by Republican Rep. John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, son of the former governor and White House chief of staff, John Sununu. Rep. Sununu has bought a cherry and maple desk for his Washington office from Manchester artisan Wayne Marcoux, while the elder Sununu has commissioned pieces from him as well.
"Wayne claims the desk will outlast me, even though it gets used as a footrest from time to time," Rep. Sununu said.
Among high-profile visitors to their exhibit in 1996 was first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Canterbury furniture maker David Lamb counts among his commission's pieces for celebrities such as Ivan Lendl and Harrison Ford.
The patron system was the idea of Concord stockbroker Tony Hartigan. He said he started thinking about the arrangement while attending a conference on global economics earlier in the decade. He asked himself, was there an industry indigenous to New Hampshire that could stand up well in international competition? Woodworking, based on the state's sprawling forests, was an obvious answer. And observing that factory-made furniture was rising in price, he saw that without the middleman, expert cabinetmakers can often equal the price of a lesser-quality piece that is sold in exclusive department stores.
"There really isn't a standard of quality that guides the consumer. So if people would recognize New Hampshire made as a 'seal of approval,' it would say it for all time," said Hartigan.
A key partner in his effort was the state historical society, which saw the importance of linking present-day furniture makers to their predecessors in 18th-century Portsmouth and other towns where the craft flourished.
The New Hampshire group combines the best of traditional styles with the modem, eclectic and whimsical. One artisan constructed a table from volcanic ash and bleached black locust, while another put mosaic glass panels on a linen storage chest. A third maker fused two mahogany hippopotamuses to create a rather hard-looking love seat.
Washington residents will get a chance to see the work of the New Hampshire masters next year, when they participate in their state's exhibit at the Smithsonian Folk Life festival in June on the Mall. There's also a chance the group may run an auction here.
Copyright The Washington Post, October 22,1998
Return to Main Article
