About

Matthew X. Curry, a Bainbridge Island woodworker currently featured at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, will be the speaker at the monthly meeting of BARN woodworkers. Anyone who's interested is invited to attend.

Longtime members of the group may remember a visit several years ago to Curry's shop. He showed some of the highly figured wood that he often uses in his pieces, which range from ornate boxes to graceful furniture. The pieces shown here are "Deco Lux Box” and “Waterfall Entry Table.”

Before moving to Bainbridge from Southern California, Curry drew architectural designs for yacht interiors, celebrity offices, residences, and restaurants. Fine woodworkers built what he drew. Now, he relishes the chance to do the hands-on work himself.

Instead of starting with a drawing, as his commercial projects once did, the pieces he builds now begin with the wood. "The wood itself presents a wonderful and varied palette from bold to gentle, subtle to striking," he wrote in an artist statement. "Woodworking to me is a dialogue between the architectural and the organic." He sees his goal as finding ways to combine different woods, textures and shapes to tell a story.

More of Curry's work can be seen on his website, www.MXCDesign.com.

— the approach his projects once took — now they start with the wood.