Andrew Insinga
When furnituremaker Bill More left Brooklyn, N.Y. and headed west on a train, the trip had an unexpected result. “I met my wife on that train,” he says. “She got on in Wisconsin, and neither of us got off until the train arrived in Portland.”
More grew up in New Jersey, where school sparked an interest in building things. “I liked classes like shop where they’d give you tools and just let you work with them,” he says.
Washram, Wash.-based mosaic artist Toms Royal became interested in tile when he owned a pottery-painting studio in Portland. “We began to offer classes in mosaics, so I had to learn how to do it,” he says. “I discovered that I enjoyed the medium and that it was a way to use my theories about design.”
A former figurative painter, Catherine J. Lee began to enjoy her art even more after she began depicting landscapes. “When you’re painting or drawing figures, you’re almost always inside,” she says. “I really enjoy being outside, so landscape painting lets me paint—and be outside.”
Architectural metalworker Joseph Mross specializes in custom, hammered-copper kitchen and fireplace hoods done in an Arts & Craft-style, but he’s made all sorts of other things, too. “I’ve done light fixtures, awnings, doors and even a hammered-pewter entertainment center,” he says. “Once, I was asked to make a forged basketball hoop.”
Growing up in Germany, Helga Winter never imagined becoming an artist of any kind, much less a woodturner. “When I was a child, I did a lot of knitting and crocheting, but it wasn’t considered art because it was practical,” she says. “When I left school, I worked as a doctor’s assistant.”
For Portland designer Michael Arras, his early experience with art gave no indication that he’d eventually decide to design furniture. “In school, I took art classes with everyone else,” he says. “But I didn’t have a real interest then. Mostly I doodled.”