Interview with B.R. Delaney of Fieldstone Artistry

We are excited to introduce B.R. Delaney of Fieldstone Artistry as the newest member of our Guild. B.R. has been building and selling furniture since he was in his early teens, but made the decision to start his artistry business almost 20 years later.

We sat down with B.R. to find out about him and his art. Keep reading to learn more about his beautiful custom pieces and what brought him to the world of woodworking.

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey to becoming a furniture maker?

A: We actually recently moved to Vermont. We lived in Catskills, New York for 11 years and moved to Southern Vermont in November 2021. I previously worked in the entertainment industry and still work on some smaller projects in that field. My wife and I both work on large-scale entertainment events worldwide – my wife typically works with car shows and related events, and I do mostly corporate events such as the Super Bowl (but not this year!) or Amazon shows. I consider it my “side hustle” now since I do a couple shows a year, but have a lot of knowledge surrounding entertainment, automation, and motion control for theaters. It is a little bit of an odd connection to the furniture-making career, but I have been making furniture for as long as I can remember. My dad, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents all had shops and I followed suit, but I am the first one to make it into a business.

Q: How did you decide on the name Fieldstone Artistry?

A: I get this a lot, and if I had known more about business when I picked the name I might have chosen something else. I started the business on our property in New York where I built my first studio that was meant to be a hobby shop and decided to create my career from there. There was this fieldstone wall that separated our yard, and I wanted to pick a name that was not too specific since I do so many different things with my art. Of course, the challenge now is that I get asked a lot if I do fieldstone walls or landscaping which I do not, at least not professionally.

Q: How would you describe your style of furniture and woodworking? 

A: My style in recent years has moved more into contemporary and modern inspirations. When I started building furniture it was rooted solely in a rustic country style, and I have moved far beyond that. I still have an appreciation for the more traditional style, but I would describe my style now as contemporary knocking on the door of modern. I don’t like building typical furniture concepts, so when I am making a table, I don’t start by thinking that it needs four legs. I will start with maybe it has three legs, maybe it has one leg, maybe it uses a cantilever, and I create my designs from there. I try to break down the needs of the piece and break away from what it historically should look like.

Q: Do you have a favorite piece that you have made so far? 

I think I would have to say I am split between two that I have made so far. The first one would be the Triptych chandelier, which is a segmented turned globe. They are ludicrously hard to make and they take a lot of time and pieces to complete, but I really enjoy them and they resonate really well with a lot of people. I also love the fulcrum table, which is a cantilever coffee table that has done really well for me. The fulcrum table is actually what I showed at the last Guild meeting. Both of these are products that I keep and designs that I am reusing, but I would say the most exciting piece is always the next piece.

Q: What do you think are some of the advantages of investing in custom furniture rather than mass produced furniture?

A: The most important thing to me and the tagline that I use for my business is function, quality, beauty in that order. I think that when you’re designing a good piece of furniture, the first challenge is getting the piece to function the way that the furniture should. It also needs to last. That doesn’t mean lasting for one or two moves of a house; it has to last for a lifetime. Lastly, it needs to be beautiful. I know that a lot of designers and artists have a different order for those three aspects where some pieces, and especially in modern furniture, focus on the beauty before considering the function or quality. The difference in custom designed furniture is that it’s an investment and it’s something that the client and the client’s family will be able to enjoy for a long time.

Q: What made you decide to move your studio from New York to Vermont?

A: We both love the countryside and being able to grow our own food, but we both started to outgrow our surroundings in New York. That was our first home, we got married on that property, so it meant a lot to us, but my shop started getting increasingly too small because it was never designed for a production facility. We had been looking to move for years, and we finally found this property in Southern Vermont. I was able to go from a 400-square foot shop to a 4,000 square foot shop on the property. My wife has a side hustle as a yoga instructor, so we are working on building a pavilion for her to teach yoga classes this summer. It was a big shift to move not only our lives, but also our businesses forward. We looked in New Hampshire and Maine as well, but Vermont checked a few more boxes for us. We love New England and we found that Vermont has a little bit more of a year round industry because of its proximity to Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Q: What inspired you to join the Guild?

A: My shop has been fairly dormant for almost a year because the process of moving up here was a challenge and a reset for us. The previous owner of the shop was a heavy equipment mechanic which is great since it is a huge building with a lot of space, but it took me a while to understand how work flow would happen and how to make the studio space feel more like a home since I spend so much time there. Once I felt more settled in I was trying to decide what my plan was. Originally, I was pretty involved in the craft show circuit but the shows are tiring for the artists and it is difficult to make money because the shows are so expensive. I was trying to move away from that exposure strategy and quite honestly found the Guild through a web search and reached out to Tim Clark through the website email. My schedule with my studio and the couple shows I still do was the main barrier for me in finding a time to meet with the Guild members and have my woodworking juried. I think it was almost a year before I was able to get to a meeting and show my work. In New York, I got into the business more fluidly, so I never looked for something like the Guild before moving to Vermont. Once I was kind of in the process of resetting my business style and goals, I thought it would be helpful to find other people in the same industry that can give me a little guidance and connection while reestablishing my business.

Q: When a potential client contacts you, what would that process look like? How do you collaborate with clients to create the perfect custom piece? 

A: For me, it is a fairly simple process. Historically, most of my work is repeat clients, which is awesome since you already have an idea of what that client wants. For new clients, I try to get a feel for what type of piece they want. I try to keep the conversation very open, because I have learned over the years that the idea a client has and the actual product that they want are not always aligned. I try to get the broad stroke ideas of what the client is looking for as far as what they want to use the piece for, any particular needs they have for the piece, and some design styles they may like. I will also do a full CAD (computer-aided design) draft for the piece once I feel like I have a good idea of what the client wants. I have the client send me some pictures of where they want the piece to go and I will model the 3D rendering in the space so the client can have something to look at and better understand what the finished piece will look like in the end. Once the design is finalized, I will provide the client with a quote and a timeline for the piece. I keep the client informed with progress images and any updates to the timeline if necessary before I deliver and install the piece for them. I ship anywhere in the US when it doesn’t make sense for me to deliver it myself.

Learn more about B.R. Delaney at the website for Fieldstone Artistry.

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