People Near Here; 303; Barney Bellenger: The Wood Works

Is it furniture or is it art. Stay tuned as we introduce you to the bell and your family to visit their studios Sansom ball. Next on people near me. Hello and welcome to another edition of people here today.

We're at Sampson Bob gets a very special studio in the southern Adirondacks far upstate New York. That's Bonnie Bell and you right there Hey Barney and our Yes. Good. We're going to hit a Barney and his wife Susan and Erin Belanger in just a little bit. This family works here creating some of the most marvelous. Well I guess you'd call it furniture you'd ever seen. Take a look at this. Isn't this absolutely incredible. It looks like it's 100 years old at least. But in fact it was designed and built right here. That Sampson bug by Barney and this family. But before we get into that and show you how creative this whole family is we thought it would be a good idea since we're talking about furniture to take a trip to the northern Adirondacks and introduce you to a fellow who is keeping a grand tradition of Adirondack furniture very much alive. He's the third generation in his family to do it. So let's go up there and meet the guy who still builds the quintessential

piece of furniture here in the Adirondacks a piece of furniture known not just around this part of the woods but around the entire world. The Adirondack chair with Thrasher organ the very heart of Adirondack Mountains. Then visitors here I'm loading some white guy getting ready to do some more shares might end goal. Mario good thanks for having us up yesterday. What do we have we have boy that would my award. Jay New York. Yeah look we put on an old rain here now back from take us to the steps of the wing in Adirondack chair which ok we go ahead and everything gets caught up in a different way. What he wants to cut out any more. Make a see

hear feel and then again feeling down here feel far over the various pieces. Be a model for the selection of the pieces that you're eliminating a lot of clothes. Cut it up and yeah that pattern works. Feelin Good. You know Louie

Louie you knew you'd done that before before. Yeah. How many how many to make sure you make between 2000 and 3000 here and there are these go here. So what exactly happened here everything is in the here in Atlanta. Turn it on Atlanta. CNN tonight night's tell you one that few choice of course to get both sides.

And what about it saying that we run everything through here and sanding wise house show you how we do. The sun is shining the sun. Actually they're very nice to sand it on the other one and then we were out for it for mass facing reality. And then we go down and then it comes down here to be put on a show like this is the finished product here. I see you go down the route and you know routed the holes where they're going to go the holes for this where is your right. Very nice Nicely done. I mean here's a date you're on here. We knew about approximately 25 chairs here.

And here's a final assembly on right now nurses just tightening tightening up the bolts and then will they will be right in the door. Can I flip this year for a little bit. Sure sure how you put it together I think that's pretty interesting. All right there's a lot of spirit here and there are plated words for some are longer than others. You find out what part of the one putting it into. So experience after doing this for a few generations it struck you you know where the maximum stress of this chair is going to be. And you anticipate that. Right. We put a longer screws in you know I would put it another brace and make sure that it's going to hold together with one thicker one where it needs to be where we think it needs to be and it turns out

OK. How long will this chair last a stinker from 20 25 years and you recommend doing what you want you get him home when you get home. We recommend just knocking off the edges a little birds and then putting an oil based paint pain on. Depending on what you want to do how long you want for your house. Oil base Mary's with the word phrase I'm on. Which is. Prettier I think than to see the wood and the grain here. Yeah what is the Adirondacks fascinated with. Yeah it's you know you come up here and

enjoy the view. This is a part of enjoying the scenery very comfortable. Finding out where you are in the country these are sold all over the country all year at around decorated very popular in the big cities. Oh yes for sure. Well that's a beautiful chair. That's three generations coming together right here in tune with crackers. Dan thanks so much for having us up my three she did get back to work. He's had a few more years with the quintessential piece of Adirondack furniture but this is a whole new level in front of her in fact Barney calls this what we call this function functional art functional art body bones you're right here. What are you doing here now.

Well right here I'm preparing the background for a trial painting. What we'll do here is have an underwater trout and he will actually be going after and so what I'm doing here is I'm painting the background first I'm doing a washing of color. And this will set the stage for the bottom of a brook. You incorporate a lot of original artwork in your. Furniture designed so much and I would say 95 percent of all of our pieces have an original oil painting. Did you do the oil painting on this piece over here. Yes this is a piece here. So you see it is original and its 98. Its going to build your many hundred years old. When we try to make the patina fit in with the great camps of today without feeling like they have a brand new piece of furniture giving it the old world look using a lot of the old elements old fly rods we have here. Yeah look at these all this is actually a flyer but you look very carefully and things slowly start to reveal by a fly rod I see

there was a clock that we have in top this is a brand new clock which we disassemble and then we paint it in and take it really and give it the age of 100 years. Very nice and this little touch here with this is that an acorn that rate there is a Red Pine Cone one split and then its encompassed here with beech knots wonder and these here but those are whirling caribou antlers. They draw back. Yes and you know this style is that what its called. Well this is like what we would call a twig mosaic pattern right. OK very traditional to the Adirondacks. Yes so youve taken this a whole nother level because I see like this little shelf being supported by roots here. Well roots you know they give you a whole new character in a movement in the piece it's a piece where the eye can follow it from spot to spot in and just every little corners interesting. You're always wondering what is behind that route or where will it take us next.

Where do you get your genes to create with your own mind when it comes to a painting. My mother is probably one of the best garage sailors in the country so she's finding a lot of pieces for us as well as myself and we have other friends out looking for things little elements of fishing and anything indigenous to the great camps of the Adirondacks about the wood. Oh all the woods. This would for instance is out of a branch from 1859 the newspaper was stuck to the back of this pine board and this was about 20 feet long. I had the opportunity to purchase a truckload of boards from an antique dealer. Great. And so the roots and the twigs when you harvest yourself we harvest all of our own twigs. We do it here in the back where we are here in the Adirondacks and we also travel to a lot of private lands we work with the foresters they let us know where there is harvesting being done first and maybe get some of the small things that we need to be very careful about that. Yes you do. There are

trees or closets from which good woodsmen take only what they need to feel strong about that can we harvest with you. And we go out right back down in the US in the wood harvesting our yellow birch because we can move our wood out a lot easier than carrying it right on the sled and bring it out of the trailer with a truck load it up and from there we'll go to the kiln. Yes we have a kiln that way there. We can run our kiln of one hundred twenty two degrees and anything that may stay in the wood and eventually to the wood All right.

It's already here. So here we are three and a half foot length so it's manageable. And then we turn around and drag it out right here. All right. If you want to hold what we have here we have a table leg table legs are cut in about 32 to 34 inches. I see. OK. OK. Show you what's going on with that. Wow look at these. Isn't

this amazing. What are we looking at here Bunny. Well these are yellow birch stumps and this actually grew together to grow together. They came out of the north woods up in the Minerva area going to do here is going to build a large cabinet if you can imagine a fly fisherman that has great rods and a collection of reels. We're going to build a cabinet within here stories where you can have a career maybe with some writing and still feel that he's right in the environment. How will they spend about eight hours on this piece really dug this one when the ground was nearly frozen and then after that we had to drag it about a mile and a half. So you harvest in the winter we harvest in the winter that time that way the bark will stay to the tree tied to the tree because the SAP has already dropped if you cut it any other time you will lose your bark. So this ensures that and this is already been in the kiln has it been in a kiln and will start working on this right after the

first of the year. Yeah. See what you got going in the kiln. OK come on in. Derek right here and this is to dry all of our yellow birch. I say this is our control panel lets us know how hot and how much moisture we're actually right now we're Forty nine degrees Celsius. That puts us up around one hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Wow so it's going to be warm and there is going to be very warm in there. You may want to stay anyway. It's winter when we look in. Let's take a look how much water is drawn about a gallon a half a day right now. Well let's see let's shut it down and then we'll take a look. We get real steamy here we go. Actually

they would get their vitamin C or a light brown when they came in and they're not black. What happens when you go in there with your wallet. It really enhances the color of the rich golden color providing that you with your temperature and to this will give it another week and a half. And they're yes they're

right. I haven't tried it yet. I'll be right in with the workshop and this is the workshop and well here's Aaron and and I. How are you. What are you doing what are they doing there. They're what they're doing now is they're putting in a cement they will be inlaying some of the Riverstone like here. Yes that's a that's a perfect example of beautiful and a finished piece. That's great. So is a fan it is a family industry very much and very much so. Yes everyone's involved in the little room here I see you've got a big piece going. Yeah what happens during what happens is that my first present the client with a drawing to scale drawing of what we would what they need

and what we can do for them. So here you see it a basic layout of how the tweets will appear where the artwork will be. And then I transfer this to my cabinet maker. We have a gentleman David Waller who builds the cabinet the carcass we call it. Here's one here. Yes here is a carcass. So he's he built the carcass and then it comes back to us for all the artwork the embellishment the tweak work. Based on your original drawing based on the original drawing and this is the classic twig. And I see you've got some twigs going here. How do you kind of write here we have a band saw. This is a table model bandsaw what we basically do is that we twig at around an angle and therefore it will fit

in with the contour of your border twig. OK so now what will do we got a little problem here with OK the other and then we are right. It's just that's it. And a lot of times we may have to do is you may have to shave one side which we do by hand with a carbon one works great with a sharp blade and a lot of patience and a lot of patience. Mark right out of the forest. Yes and honey this is killed right as well. This is actually far off from a dead tree. Just this history of laid in the woods for quite a while and I took on this really want to feel character a great patina and peel this off. And then what we do is we will adhere it to the cabinet substrate

by applying a contact cement. And then we put our park on. We clamp it overnight. Just the contacts and just a contact cement that's it. Yeah. And these are all nailed on ice so you very carefully everyone is pretty drilled and nails drilled and everyone and this is a drawer This is the drawer. Great look at that. I mean it's a very very functional piece when you're done. Yes. This is not something you said it's something you really really use. This is a sideboard. The client will use this as a sideboard serving tea dishes silverware and all that type. And you'll do what you could do or shed decorations do antler pulls the corners will be embellished with the old Birch coming down the corners and this will be cut away at a radius. The natural shape of a yellow birch limb if you will and it will form a wonderful irregular shape across the bottom and then the rest of this balance will be tweaked out. And this is a wonderful piece here which is kind of neat. George this will be your center door. And. So you know you look for

those natural I hate to say imperfection but yes those blessings of nature do in here that's right that's right is that God is real God has given us all of these natural elements with which we can express our own individual feelings and that's what I find great about nature. You know we're not raising it or is it just an absolutely fabulous way. How long will it take you to make a piece. Finish it finish a piece the size. We will work on this piece approximately 30 to 40 days. Very time consuming because the client has requested a birdseye maple top which we will finish in a year thing and that takes three coats of oil before we put the earthing to get the desired color. And after that we'll do a little backsplash and then the client will like one more little detail he would like a hand painted scenery right here in the center drawer and you'll do that. So we'll do that and last that goes on last after we have a

personality to work with. Everything Barney and Susan and Erin created Sampson Boggs has its own distinctive personality. No two pieces of anything crafted here are exactly alike. They are as different as the vast and ever changing wonders of the Adirondacks and a lifetime of living here in the north country has given this former illustrator and signed painter the powerful skills and the awesome talent to transform nature. It's a gift which does not go without giving fangs. It's

fabulous. Well I can't thank you enough for having us over. That was it was a great driver. We'll let you get back to work here. OK. And thanks again. We want to thank everybody for tuning in we really appreciate talking to you so much as we get to you and we have a videographer here in saying Thanks for watching. We will see you again next time you see some more interesting people near here.