The Studio

 

I started Marcus Studio in 1992, in a 100 year-old wooden carriage house in the East End of Pittsburgh, PA. 

My formal education is in the Fine Arts, having graduated Oberlin College in 1978 with a BFA degree in Painting and Printmaking. Since then, Iʼve worked professionally as a painter, graphic artist, offset printer, silk screener, and software engineer, before diving into furniture design and construction. The common thread that weaves all of these jobs together for me is a passion for “design and composition” which begins with a blank piece of paper and extends through the execution of a given piece.

Even my painting background has found a way to seep into the furniture, which often balances material contrasts between the organic earth-tones of the wood and “inorganic” materials such as frosted or painted glass, colored lacquers, or laminated acrylic sheets with embedded textures. This is where the fun begins for me.

 

 

 

 

 

A Fusion of Styles

To describe any artistic “style” is to define itʼs “vocabulary”, the rules of engagement. In my furniture work, it is still relatively easy to spot the ancestry of many “straight-line” styles that I admire for their simplicity and timeless beauty, including “Arts and Crafts”, Shaker, Danish, Scandanavian. From those rudimentary beginnings, my work has evolved by introducing details derived from Japanese, French Noveau, as well as contemporary American and Italian pieces. Through these various influences, I have begun to create my own vocabulary that is a fusion of many styles, and which expresses my own design sensibilities in a very clear and articulate way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Workshop

Still located in the East End of Pittsburgh, in an industrial section of Larimer, Iʼm building furniture in my largest and best equipped “playpen” ever, approximately 10,000 square feet of woodworking heaven. The woodshop is a cooperative environment in which a number of woodworkers share much of the larger equipment and storage space, but where everyone maintains their own private bench areas. This arrangement proves conducive to sharing creative and technical ideas as well as the heavy loads that are prevalent in the work. Lots of natural light and 16 foot ceiling in my bench area make it a terrific place to come to work each day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Gallery

In addition to the woodshop, our building on Hamilton Ave. has a 2400 sq. ft., newly renovated gallery, which showcases our work, and has quite a bit of artwork on the walls as well. Customers can purchase pieces in the showroom, or can use the pieces as starting points for modified or completely new pieces to be designed. Additionally, there are plenty of material samples including solid hardwoods, wood veneers, new “green” materials, glass, colors, etc., all of which are used in our furniture and cabinetry. The gallery is open by appointment only. We also have gallery events throughout the year. If youʼd like to be notified of our gallery events as they happen, please sign up for our email newsletter.   

If you need help finding us,  here is a map of our location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay in Touch

Thank you for your interest in Marcus Studio! As new products are created and placed in our showroom, we will post them to this site. Please sign up for our periodic email newsletter which will keep you current with new featured products as soon as they become available.