“A very important part of my work has to do with materials,” says David Lamb, New Hampshire’s fifth Artist Laureate. Although many artists are inspired by the state’s forested landscape, Lamb is one of the handful who make art from pieces of the landscape itself.

“There are many woods that I think are exemplary that we grow up here,” says the master furniture maker. “I’m particularly fond of a white birch.” Lucky that the white birch is the state tree, and grows in every part of New Hampshire. Lamb even has a favorite part of the white birch: “There is, in the fork, something called ‘crotch wood,’ and it is just a jewel,” he says. Crotch wood from many tree species is prized, because it is highly compressed from the pressure of the branch against the trunk; this compression also causes beautiful distortions in the grain. But because most white birch is just cut for firewood or uniform lumber, that “jewel” is usually “relegated to the fireplace,” Lamb says. “It’s not commercially available.

“So if I want it, I have to find it. I talk to loggers, land owners… so they all know that I’m looking for it.” When he can get it, he has it cut into veneers and then uses it in individually-commissioned pieces in his Canterbury studio. That studio, where Lamb apprenticed with master European cabinetmaker Alejandro de la Cruz more than thirty years ago, contains Lamb’s collection of 1880-1910 woodworking machinery. He began his collection as a teenager, because he couldn’t afford modern equipment. Much of  the machinery was made here in New Hampshire, by the John A. White Company in Concord and Dover.  Lamb displays his collection in the 19th century Belmont mill warehouse that he saved from demolition when he took it apart and rebuilt it onto his existing studio.

Lamb’s studio also connects him to tradition because of its location; the studio is right next to Shaker Village, where Lamb grew up. Although he’s not a Shaker himself, the Shakers’ furniture making traditions, and their attention to detail and careful craftsmanship, certainly rubbed off on him. He also appreciates that the village protects a lot of land with a conservation easement. “Those ponds attract so much wildlife and birdlife,” he adds. “It’s really a beautiful environment.”

His work is not limited to Shaker-style pieces, however. Competent in numerous “design languages,” Lamb works with his clients to best match their aesthetics.

But a few things do show up in a lot of his work: plants, especially wildflowers, are found in the finely carved patterns on many pieces of Lamb’s furniture. These plants, of course, are mainly ones found in New England. “I’ve always been a lover of wild flowers,” he says, “the wild iris, cattails…”

He also notes that his father worked at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, “So I utilized that as a form.” (Interestingly, this year the Arboretum is having a show from August 7th to September 16th.) References to the arboreal source of his materials are visible in the shapes and textures of what Lamb makes from them; one of his recent tables even uses burled stumps for legs, as if the table was growing out of the floor, and the tabletop’s edges show the curves of the tree it was cut from.

Some of Lamb’s most recent work is currently on display at the New Hampshire Historical Society’s Library in Concord until September 9th, and will be included in a silent auction at the Currier Museum in Manchester on the 12th, as part of an event by the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association.

Lamb is a founding member of the Furniture Masters Association, and his involvement with that organization, as well as sitting on the board of Shaker Village, and of course creating individualized and extremely well-crafted (not to mention beautiful) pieces of furniture, keep him pretty busy. But he gives credit where it’s due: says Lamb,“I’m in the woods whenever I can be.”