Profile: Mr. Henderson Presents by Andy Flynn
A Young Bolton Landing Designer's Fresh Take On Rustic Furniture

  People are prone to instantly falling in love with Adirondack rustic furniture. Even before leaving a gallery devoted to it, the brain has already moved the twiggy, woodsy pieces into the cottage: a twisted redwood rocker on the enclosed front porch, a birch-bark-appliquéd sideboard in the dining room, a cedar blanket chest at the end of the queen-size yellow-birch bed.
 
  Those looking to acquire furniture made by Jason Henderson, however, may want to hold that impulse to buy and chew on it for a while. His work is more than just furniture. It's art.
 
  From conception to construction, Henderson takes the foundation of his love for the Adirondack forest, adds a primary coat of architecture, a layer of sculpture, a bundle of curvy tree branches and polishes it all up with the cleanliness of Danish modern design. At the end, he has a one-of-a-kind rustic piece ready to coexist with a North Country camp or home.

  Only two years out of college, the Bolton Landing resident finds himself in the same holding tank as many recent fine-arts graduates discovering themselves and their environment while trying to meet their societal responsibilities. Henderson has a day job to pay the bills and a night job to satisfy his passion.

  Working for W. D. Williams Construction, Inc., based in Cleverdale, Henderson builds custom cabinets and architectural elements such as trellises for homes on Lake George. In his spare time he uses Williams Constructions shop to make furniture for his own company, J. R. Henderson Design.

  Hendersons grandparents log home, where he lives year-round on the western shore of Lake George, provides ample inspiration, with the deep blue water as backdrop. Sitting in the dining room overlooking the lake, in a rustic chair made by Schroon Lakes Barry Gregson, he holds a mug filled with coffee and discusses furniture design. The twenty-four-year-old does not have all the answers, he admits, yet he says he enjoys looking for them, spending time at the library researching the work of fellow artists before putting his ideas down on paper. Henderson, with his mom and sister, moved to Bolton Landing from Loudonville when he was nine. A trip to the annual Rustic Fair, a gathering of the regions top artisans and their work at the Adirondack Museum, in Blue Mountain Lake, when he was sixteen made a deep impression on him, prompting him to create his first pieces of furniturea twiggy chair and stool. Shop class at Proctor Academy, a preparatory school in Andover, New Hampshire, gave him basic skills with woodworking tools. And training at the Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Crafts equipped him with advanced furniture-making techniques and an appreciation for internationally renowned artists.

  Several masters influence Henderson during the furniture design phase: Argentinian-born architect and industrial designer Emilio Ambasz, Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, American sculptor Carl Andre and Danish designer Hans Wegner.

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  Ambasz creates furniture based on its relationship with people. His vertebra chair, for example, was made to be an extension of the body. Yet Henderson is most impressed by Ambaszs architecture, which inspires him to look at how furniture relates to its landscape. . . . A house sits on the land so it can relate to mountains, trees, topography, he explains. Furniture is mobile, so its landscape can change.

  Scarpas architecture spotlights textures, the importance of detail and how light affects the final product from dawn to dusk, says Henderson. One of the most respected architects of the twentieth century, Scarpa was a master of materials. He mixed and matched concrete, stone, metal and wood, and threw in windows, sometimes with odd textured glass, to see how light played into the space. He used light as an architectural element, something Henderson strives to achieve.

  In Andres minimalist sculpture, he contrasts the texture and warmth of the materials against the spatial and material elements of the gallery. He also invites people to interact with his work. His 10x10 Altstadt Copper Square, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, is a collective sheet of one hundred 19.7-inch-square copper plates on a wooden floor. Henderson says Andres work is his favorite and most closely associated with his approach to design, as he continues to explore how people live and function with his sculpture-based furniture. His attention to texture is what influences me, and this plays a lot in the rustic work, he says.

  In Hendersons furniture the rustic nature of twig material contrasts with what he calls the clean elements. Danish modern designtypified by Wegners workis known for its simplicity and refined appearance, and figures largely in Hendersons approach to rustic furniture.

  The work of Hendersons college mentor, former RIT professor Richard Scott Newman, isnt Danish modern, but its arguably the most technically proficient furniture in the country at the moment, he says. He makes things that just boggle the mind, and its all about the details.

  Newman taught Henderson patience and showed him how to prepare the studio before diving into construction. The best lesson? Sanding. I think the difference between a fine piece of furniture and just a good piece of furniture is in the sanding, says Henderson.
   
  On the surface, Danish modern design would seem to flow against the grain of traditional Adirondack rustic furnitures sticks and bark. But Henderson is not trying to be a traditionalist. He mixes metal with wood and stone. The variety of wood can include cherry, maple, walnut, ash, hickory, mahogany, oak, yellow birch, English sycamore, Macassar ebony or Swiss pear. Techniques range from bent laminations to classic dovetail joinery. Since he is a slave to his designs, Henderson admits that adding rustic wood elements to his furniture isnt easy. Im struggling with it because of the irregularity of the material, he says.
  
   Its impractical to change a design simply because a stick, which may require multiple joinery, doesnt fit, he says. Henderson will carefully analyze his collection of sticks in the basement before designing a piece so he doesnt find himself without the right material during construction.
  
  Although he attends furniture shows, his work is not found in galleries. He makes most of his furniture on commission but loves to dabble with personal projects, especially his mostly freestanding cabinets.
  
  Henderson calls one such creation Container. Built in 2005, it stands fifty-five inches tall and balances on four tapered maple branches stripped and sanded to perfection. The thickest parts of the branches, like fingers, hold a small, polished Macassar ebony box lined with curly English sycamore, just big enough for cigars or a television remote control. People dont know what to do with them, he says. I think that most people cant get over the fact that the function is secondary. The form is what its all about.

   Hendersons furniture ranges in price, depending on the time it takes him to design and build. Container, for example, took about ninety hours to make and sells for twenty-five hundred dollars. His walnut, yellow birch and quartered-oak table costs fifty-five hundred. And a landscape-inspired ash-and-nickel bench supported by fieldstones, made to represent the flow of a river, is sixty-five hundred. Its an insanely complicated piece, Henderson says of the bench, which was a two-hundred-hour project. These are all bent laminations, so these curves, with compound miters, are huge.

   While Henderson admires the work of Adirondack rustic-furniture masters, such as Wayne Ignatuk, of Swallowtail Studio, in Jay, and Barney Bellinger, of Sampson Bog Studio, in Mayfield, he doesnt compare himself to them. Theres no need. Hes just trying to be himself. If you listen to who you are, youre automatically going to be different from all the other guys because there is nobody else like you.