Wildwood Rustic Furnishings

North Woods Life

Duane Shoup is a furniture-maker who lives north of Itasca State Park in Moose Creek Township in northern Minnesota. Duane, who moved to the North Woods from metropolitan northern Indiana, says, "I can have my boat in Lake Itasca in thirty minutes. It's a beautiful place to live but a tough place to make a living. I came up here to live in the woods but I soon realized I needed an export product to make a living."

Duane's Wildwood Rustic Furnishings was born featuring his unique line of split maple and bentwood custom rockers, rustic pine lab benches, dining tables and chairs, coffee and sofa tables and accessories. Customers appreciate Duane's artistic vision, which was sparked when he saw instructions for making a bentwood rocker in a 1970s issue of Mother Earth News magazine. "They had a guy from Colorado in there who was doing it," he remembers. "I was laid off and I thought I'd experiment with it a little."

Fine Wood

In Indiana, Duane used willow for the bentwood portion of the rockers but after his move to the north country, he turned to hazel bush and young ash seedlings. "The willow up here doesn't dry with a nice color. It's kind of blotchy," he says. "The ash and the hazel dry a really nice brown color."

Duane's favorite wood is the skinny little sugar maple saplings that nobody else wants. Driving around in the woods in his 4-wheeler and specially designed trailer, he looks for the right size saplings; trees that are two to three inches in diameter. Wielding a tiny chain saw he fells them, bucks them into lengths, piles them on the wagon, takes them home, and peels them with his razor-sharp draw knife.

"Maple lends itself well to making this furniture because it's hard, it's strong, it's just indestructible stuff," he says. "Around here it's just considered to be scrap. When I'm cruising around the woods I sort of know what to look for-like these arms, which I split. The arms tend to be matches of pieces that have certain curves that I like the look of."

Flowing Heartwood

Duane likes the liquid harmony of curves; not the brittle, imposed harmony of right angles and he likes color. When he cuts through the hard, dry maple you can smell the wood as the saw warms it. As the wood opens to the human eye for the first time, Duane sees only the fine-grained consistent creamy white that has made industrial furniture makers so fond of maple. But occasionally, Duane witnesses a flash of delicate rose or even a swirl of green on a background of cream. Sometimes the heartwood will almost flow with a rich dark chocolate color. Duane saves unusual colors for the back and arms of his furniture.

"The seat of the chair is the heart of the chair." Duane says HEART with all upper case letters. The legs and the rockers depend on it. The back counts on its strength. And it's the sitter's point of focus. "On a lot of these seats, I sculpt them out," he says. "They're more comfortable that way."

One-of-a-Kind Craftsmanship

"I try and get these shapes to compliment each other, so I get something that looks interesting. They kind of flow together." When he's creating the back he also looks for pieces with a slight concave quality friendly to your back. If it's not there his band saw will put it there. Flow, harmony, comfort plus one-of-a-kind uniqueness. Duane's pieces reflect his independent spirit and an artistic vision that is closely bound to the forest around him.