3 8 |H S t o u t » lanuary 5. 2001
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Offering general internal
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Serving the community fo r 17 yearo
2330 NW Flanders
Suite 207
503 - 226*6678
DOWNTOWN AT 927 SW OAK
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Comfortable Bikes
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Open Tuesday-Sunday
(503) 230-7723
2025 SK Hawthorne
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Bigham’s furniture recalls older architectural
styles, and each piece looks heavy and sturdy
with rigid right angles. Panels and trims add
visual weight and interest.
Although each member or bit of trim
might have come from a different species of
wood or be a different style of carving, the
whole works to make a new and
unique design.
The antique effect is furthered
by Bigham’s finishes. Painting in
muted secondary and tertiary
hues or off-whites, he then
distresses the surfaces to give
the effect of aging.
Some of his pieces also
are gilded. The finishes help
blend the old and new
woods into a cohesive
design.
1 found Bigham’s pieces
to have more style than
comfort, but any of them
would look right at home
in older houses or add
interest to contemporary
decor. He calls his business
Black Dog Furniture
Design.
“To me, building a piece
of furniture is a puzzle,” he
says. “Part of the fun is find
ing the pieces to make
what’s in my head.”
Bigham doesn’t like to
build to fit too many speci
fications. “W hen I can ’t do One of
my own designs, I feel like I’m being
squashed.”
Bigham laughed when I asked
him how he felt about straight peo
ple assuming he is an interior deco
rator because he is a gay man. He
tells a story about one of his
early benches and how he had
painted it solid green. As he
was delivering the finished
product, which was tied on
top of his car, he was horri
fied when it began to rain.
“Paint started streaming
over my windshield,”
Bigham says. “By the time I
got there, the finish was
ruined.”
W hen he showed it to
the new owner, she oohed
and aahed over the clever
“distressed” look before he
could explain! So instead,
he varnished the piece to
protect the wood and called
it done.
Bigham travels to Bali to
buy carved wood for his furni
ture, and h e’s happy to tell you
the story behind his pieces the
way a parent might talk about his
children. W ind him up, and you’ll
get a whole story about how each
one came to be. A bench might
have legs from a trash bin, a seat from
a door and trim from a foreign land.
Many of Bigham’s pieces have hidden
compartments not even the new owner is
aware of. He hides little notes in
these compartments congratu
lating the finder and asking
them to write in their name
and the date of discovery.
So, what kind of furniture
does Bigham have in his own home?
“I have no furniture,” he says.
His work sells fast, and he’s kept busy
making furniture for other people. He knows
what he wants for his home, though.
“I have all the pieces,” he says. “But they’re
all in my head.
"in
You can find B lack D og F urniture D esign
creations at Gregs, 3707 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.,
and 3 Monkeys, 803 N.W. 23rd Ave.
HERON is a Portland free-lance writer and
artist.
BY HERON
W estoyer H eights
is a door a bench?
W hen Brett Bigham makes
furniture. He loves to rescue
old architectural castoffs,
Goodwill furniture, estate sale
finds— bits and pieces of yester
year’s treasures— and make furni
ture out of them.
Don’t be surprised to find an
old stairway spindle forming legs
to a table. An old desktop
made into a bench seat. An
ancient headboard becomes
the bench’s back. Old stuff
the rest of us toss out gets
transformed into something
totally new in his hands.
Bigham, 36, also teaches
special ed classes for Port
land Public Schools. He spe
cializes in behaviorally trou
bled youth and has the bite
marks on his arm to prove it.
Making his home in South
east Portland with his two
dogs, he is single but “always
looking.”
Four years ago, Bigham
started making birdhouses out
of bits of wood left over from his
ex’s building projects. He enjoyed
making them and putting them in
his yard. Soon, he noticed the
neighbors were stealing them, so he
made more.
Then, he graduated to furniture
pieces, each unique and full of charac
ter. Friends wanted those, too, so he
made still more.
W hen his friend Lisa
Schroeder started her restau
rant, M other’s Bistro and
Bar, in downtown Portland,
she commissioned him to fur
nish* the place. He built tables,
benches, shelves and booths, and when
that project was done, he kept right on
building.
Bigham donated one of his pieces, a cof
fee table with a carved top, to the Cascade
AIDS Project and was delighted to find that
it was auctioned off for $900. W hat began as
a hobby is now a business— and business is
good.
Bigham’s shabbily chic tables