Featured Seller: grayworksdesign

grayworksdesign

Story by grayworksdesign

Published on Jan 17, 2011 in Shop

Photo by grayworksdesign

Tell us a bit about yourself.
We are Andrew Gray and Elizabeth Bryant. Our workshop is located in the Catskill Mountain town of Bearsville, a tiny hamlet of Woodstock (yep, that Woodstock), New York. The mountain and river towns of this region are steeped in a rich arts legacy of music, painting, literature, sculpture, dance, and film, to name a few. We’re acutely aware of the fortune of that history and its influence on our work. Our love of place informs the objects we create, as well as our strong sense of responsibility to cultivate an environmentally sustainable company. We owe everything to the wilderness where we live and work, so protecting and supporting it is our highest priority.

Andrew: I grew up in Bearsville, but attended a tiny alternative day school in Poughkeepsie, New York, which was a pretty sheltered environment. After college I did a brief stint with the New York City Parks Department, then moved back upstate and apprenticed with several builders. When I met Elizabeth I had already cut my teeth as a mason and carpenter, but had only just begun working on my own furniture designs.

Elizabeth: I’m a Brooklyn native, but aside from time spent away at college and grad school, I’ve lived in the Hudson Valley for nearly 30 years. I’m also a freelance photographer and writer associated with a few different experimental collectives, primarily Dusie and Black Radish Books. Up until recently, I was co-curator of the Bard Roving Reading Series, at Bard College.

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Apart from creating things, what do you do?
Andrew: Woodworking is my full-time job. Whether I am making a custom bed, a run of Footed Plattes, or installing a wide plank floor, every working day involves creating things. I still try to find time for hiking, cycling, soccer, backcountry skiing and, canoeing. Any activity that gets me outside in the fresh air does me a lot of good.

Elizabeth: I track birds that come to my feeder for the annual Cornell Bird Count, have spent almost a decade wrestling with the seminars of Jacques Lacan, and am still trying (and still failing…) to execute a perfect telemark turn. Meanwhile, I occasionally sing in choirs, and I always eat lots of chocolate and drink lapsang souchong tea.

What first made you want to become an artist?
Andrew: My motivation to work as a carpenter and stone mason was based on a preference for physical labor, as opposed to sitting at a desk. As I developed manual skills within those trades and started accumulating tools, I found a deep desire to know as much as possible about building and making deliberate aesthetic choices. I soon realized I’d embarked on a quest that will probably last the rest of my life.

Elizabeth: I’m the youngest child of a large (7 girls, 1 boy) immigrant family. It was a bumpy, noisy ride back then, and I turned to drawing and writing as an alternative to the tumult. The plan wasn’t to become an artist so much as there was a necessity to carve out a private sanctuary. I kept a daily journal, which developed into an ingrained practice of documenting the facts of everyday life. Likewise, photography became another powerful tool of documentation.

Please describe your creative process.
Andrew: A lot of inspiration comes from the materials and tools I use. The more time I spend with a given piece of wood, the better. Ideally, I get to know the tree before it gets cut into lumber. Maintaining a substantial stash of material is key, so I devote a considerable amount of time to collecting and selecting lumber for various projects. I like to keep a few interesting pieces of lumber and several woodworking tools propped against the walls of my living space to serve as brainteasers.

Elizabeth: My role in making our wares is more external nowadays than when we first started out. I work to establish the character of our furniture in words and pictures, and I aim to create descriptive information that’s narrative as well as informative. I also play a role in product design, helping to determine, for example, the balance between creating a beautiful sculpture and building a functioning product.

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What handmade possession do you most cherish?
Andrew: An intricately patterned, rust and orange merino wool hat that Elizabeth knitted.

Elizabeth: A big, beautiful, three-legged, spalted elm desk — made by Andrew, of course.

What advice would you give to artists who are new to Etsy?
Our favorite Etsy artists seem to possess an unquantifiable mixture of resourcefulness, ingenuity, and self-awareness. If you can cultivate those qualities and really tune into what motivates and inspires you, then you’re probably more than halfway there. Carve space in your life to make the things you love to make, and then take the time to develop thoughtful, unexplored methods for presenting your work. Strive to create a unique and inviting presence, and resist the urge to imitate. The Blog is a great resource for keeping up with things like seasonal changes and trends, which can be very helpful when you’re trying to make adjustments to your Etsy shop.

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What are your favorite features on Etsy? What new features would you like to see?
The Treasury system is genius for all kinds of reasons, but we especially appreciate the way it brings spectacularly interesting and well-made items to the surface. We’re also big fans of Keep it Weird because it celebrates the spirit of inventiveness that’s the life-force of Etsy. The recent addition of the Activity Feed feature has made it easier for us to discover new sellers we love as well.

An advanced function for searching our sold items would be a blessing, as would a means for organizing invoices and a field for adding notes to invoices after an item has sold. And, in a perfect world, we’d like a checkout system that offers a variety of shipping options and automatically calculates worldwide shipping costs at checkout.

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How do you promote your work?
It turns out that wearing products made by other Etsy sellers is an excellent way to promote our own work, because some of those items invariably cause people to ask where they came from (most notably: a grey “Foks” scarf we bought from celapiu). This creates an easy, natural opening to invite people to check out our own Etsy shop.

We also use Facebook and Twitter and have a busy vending schedule at local (which for us is as far flung as NYC and the Berkshires) markets and craft venues. While at markets we always encourage people to check us out on Etsy.

In ten years, where would you like to be?
Andrew: I’d like to have a two-year waiting list for custom furniture and a crew of fully employed, seasoned carpenters, banging out beautiful woodwork every day. I’d also love to be more involved in forest management and devote more time to being a good environmental steward.

Elizabeth: In 10 years, my daughter will be just about finished with college. We’ve promised each other we’ll find a way to spend a year living in a cottage in Jura, Scotland, where she can work on her novel, and I’ll compose paeans to George Orwell.

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