Rising Stars: Meet Brian Benham

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Benham.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Like many woodworkers, I grew up watching PBS woodworking and home improvement shows. I was around eight years old when I started watching Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s Shop. He only used antique hand tools and worked out of a barn.

My 8-year-old brain was fascinated with this concept, and I knew one day I needed to buy a property with an old barn on it to house my woodworking shop. Norm Abrahms’s The New Yanke Workshop came on the air a few years later. He had a shop full of power tools. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to need a bigger barn.

My dad also helped me get started in the trades. He was a project manager for a bridge-building construction company and helped me get my first job at age 13 in the fabrication shop. I was forklift certified before I had a driver’s license. I worked in the fabrication shop every summer while going to school until I was 20.

That job taught me a lot about steel fabrication, problem-solving, carpentry, and concrete work, basically exposing me to many different trades. Having learned so many trades, I went on to be a project manager for a design-build construction company. Eventually, I started my own furniture design art studio, Benham Design Concepts. Designing furniture to resemble art.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
When starting my shop, one of the biggest struggles was acquiring the tooling needed to build furniture. If you want to build furniture at a fast enough rate to keep your bills paid, you can’t rely on hand tools like Roy Underhill. You need to be able to process lumber fairly quickly, and those tools cost a lot of money.

After paying my bills for each project I completed, I would reinvest the remaining money into the business. It was a slow way to build out a shop, but I didn’t want to take on large sums of debt. This is still a struggle today. As my skills have grown and my shop has filled up with tools, I now find myself struggling to find adequate, affordable shop space. Due to unaffordable shop space rent, the commercial rental market may eventually put all the small businesses out of business.

Aside from tool acquisition and affordable shop space, the most challenging thing I face today is getting my product in front of prospective buyers. 10 years ago, you could post your latest creation on social media with well-thought-out hashtags and pick up your next commission. Today, there is so much noise on social media that it is hard to cut through. You have to make Social media your full-time job and make art your side hustle to be seen.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Naturally, when I was eight years old and watched Roy Underhill on PBS, I gravitated towards woodworking. I would spend hours in my parent’s garage, using my dad’s tools, attempting to build what I saw Roy build on Television that week. Couple my love for woodworking with the steel fabrication I learned from my first job, and I was well on my way to being a mixed-media artist.

I am now known for my work with metal patination, where I use different chemical combinations applied to different types of metals to create abstract coloration. Basically, painting with chemical reactions on metal. I often incorporate these metal paintings into my furniture as decorative elements. They really add a splash of color and texture. This combination of metal and wood in such a sophisticated and unique manner is what sets my work apart from other furniture makers.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Going back to being eight years old and using my dad’s tools, my mom had a rule that I couldn’t use any of my dad’s power tools unless he was there to supervise me. Power tools were a little scary at eight years old, and I doubt I was tall enough to see over the radial arm saw’s table, so this was fine with me. Besides, Roy Underhill was my woodworking hero at the time, and he only used hand tools.

So I was carving one day and broke the cardinal rule not to cut towards yourself. I slipped with a chisel and sliced my thumb open about an inch long all the way to the bone. Luckily, Roy had an informative episode on sharpening tools a few weeks back. I had that chisel nice and sharp, so it was a clean cut, but man, my mom was pissed. That’s how I got my first set of stitches as a maker.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.benhamdesignconcepts.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benham_design/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenhamDesignConcepts
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/benham-design-concepts/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXO8f1IIliMKKlu5PgSpodQ
• Other: https://www.briansbenham.com/