BARRY GREGSON
BARRY GREGSON RUSTIC FURNITURE, SCHROON LAKE
“Functional sculpture” is what Barry Gregson calls the pieces he makes using materials from the woods. “The find makes the fashion,” he says, and these days a finished piece is likely a chair, one that appears to have pushed up from the earth itself, elegantly gnarled.
“I really love making chairs and get a kick out of supporting the human form,” says Gregson. In the 42 years he’s been crafting rustic furniture, he’s put a lifetime guarantee on everything he makes. “Now that I’ve got my gray hair and I’m 70, people kind of say, ‘Well, big deal,’” he laughs. But “fussed-over furniture takes a long time to make. The first priority is durability, the second is comfort and the third priority is looks.”
As a kid growing up in Warrensburg’s Pack Forest, Gregson learned how to manipulate reeds into kites. He made boomerangs, airplanes and sailboats. That launched a love of working with natural materials—eventually native stone—and as a career-mason, Gregson estimates he built 100 fireplaces and 100 retaining walls.
