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Furniture artisan Kelly Maxwell, owner of Littlebranch Farm art and furniture studio, was a farming enthusiast as a child. He worked the land with his grandfather and told the older gentlemen he wanted to be a farmer one day, too.
'No, you don't,” his grandfather curtly replied.
So, after 20 years in a career as a paramedic, Maxwell taught himself to create furniture. He now makes vanities, mantels, tables, and beds in his workshop on 2nd Avenue South, behind the Littlebranch Farm store. He works with wood species such as walnut, big leaf maple, buckeye burl, western cedar, and twisted juniper. On many pieces, live edges enhance the wood's organic aesthetic.
'I'm not trying to manipulate the rawness of the wood or conform it into something different,” he says.
Littlebranch Farm also features furniture made of reclaimed barn wood, black maple, and redwood. The redwood slabs, sourced from those giants of the earth with the distinctive cinnamon-red bark, are taken from trees that fell on California's forest floors years ago.
Through the cross-section grain patterns, each slab reveals a tree's memoir. Such tales may go back centuries: California redwoods, for example, can live upwards of 2,000 years. The live edge adds an architectural quality, so that each piece of furniture becomes a painting and sculpture in one.
'It's a raw sculpture carved by nature, by this life of the tree,” Maxwell says. 'And you have a painting that's painted inside the tree, by the stress and life of the tree.”
And, just like a memoir, no two are ever alike.901 2nd Ave. S., 615-878-6216; littlebranchfarm.com Photos by Brandon Cawood