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With an artist’s eye and a builder’s touch, Montrose resident Adam Duncan has been crafting fine furniture for the past 10

years. In his shop on a late-November afternoon,

Duncan was meticulously sanding and fitting together table legs for one of the many pieces in his work queue. Stationary saws and bench tops border the sawdust-sprinkled room.

A decade ago, when he decided to pursue woodwork and furniture as an art form and a pastime, Duncan started his shop with simpler implements: a draw knife, a small chainsaw and a large, two-handed drill with a cone-making bit.

Duncan and his wife, Yesenia, were living in Greeley at the time and one day while shopping in Loveland, Duncan was struck by some of the pieces displayed in a small log furniture shop.

“We saw some of this work and I thought, ‘that would be so much fun, I’d be good

at that,’” Duncan recalled. “(Yesenia) basically just

said, ‘Well, do it.’”With his mini-

malist set of tools and

the

Montrose artist cra�s custom and creative furniture

Story and photos by Drew Setterholm

beginnings of a personal style emerging, Duncan created high quality, handcrafted pieces — but struggled to make his pastime a profession.

“I basically found out that you can build great furniture, but if you don’t know how to market yourself and build a clientele base … you’ve just got a bunch of furni-ture,” he said.

Duncan’s portfolio grew and his personal style developed. About five years after picking up the trade, he connected with a designer who had a similar vision for the work and helped Duncan sell his pieces.

Finding a mix of creating art within his vision and producing pieces that were mar-ketable was part of the learning process.

“There’s a fine medium there of building what is fresh and interesting but also still marketable,” Duncan said.

Duncan estimated 60 to 70 percent of his

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