Rake Appeal { Home

Solid, sturdy, maybe a provincial flourish at the leg—this is the sort of wooden furniture most of us grew up with. A scratched pine dinner table—the utilitarian plinth on which the evening’s steaming noodle casserole is served—likely played a central role as a family gathering spot. Squat shelves are another of these universals, the collecting point for both books and dusty portraits of forebears sporting alarming hairdos.

But Thomas Menke insists such staples of domestic life needn’t be boring. “I pride myself on an innovative use of the material,” he said of the woods—cherry, black walnut, and maple—he uses in bookcases, tables, and cabinetry. Menke has spent the past twenty-six years as a custom woodworker, crafting simple and elegant yet rigorously individual forms. “I’ve always liked to push the idea of modern work,” said Menke, hinting at the clean lines that characterize his pieces. “ ‘Modern’ is, essentially, always seeking the next level.”

Another virtue that Menke says he and his contemporaries strive for is the “beautifully functional.” One example is a Menke coffee table fashioned out of a long plank of laminated wood. Made from thin strips of fir and then sawed off to expose their edge-grain, the laminate’s texture is something like a bamboo sushi mat. It can indeed be succinctly described as “modern,” yet the painstaking quality evident in the laminate lends it a certain traditional glow.

Another popular Menke piece is the “Archie” bookcase, a compact piece whose three shelves are anchored between sinuous, sloping lines. The simple design highlights the gentle gleam and buttery quality of the wood itself, an African species called Paduak.

Local woodworkers like Menke are busier than ever these days, thanks to the boom in residential loft and condominium developments. These kinds of homes beg for something more striking than the IKEA-style butcher block or standard factory-made cabinetry, yet the owners of such places still want the comforts that go along with the more-traditional furniture they grew up with. Local galleries, too, are embracing woodworking more than ever, with two spaces being wholly devoted to the art form. Blue Sky Galleries in Northeast Minneapolis and Xylos in southwest Minneapolis sell everything from whimsical bookcases that feature attached ladders to twenty-first-century takes on the classic Eames lounge chair, and sleek, metal-trimmed tables that cover up unsightly radiators—all crafted by locals.