Utility with Beauty Inspires a Furniture Maker in Colorado

Matt Downer shows off an adjustable chandelier crafted of black walnut and steel with a polished stone counterweight. He unearthed the stone in Rico, Colorado, where he lives. | Photo: Matt Downer

In the tiny mountain town of Rico, Colorado, where winters are long and summers are glorious, Matt Downer builds masterpieces. In his hands, slabs of cherry or walnut are transformed into unique, sculptural furniture and light fixtures that are as much works of art as they are functional pieces. “I’m always trying to balance utility with beauty,” he says. “A piece needs to do what it’s meant to do, but it should also be graceful, pleasing to the eye and the hand.”

An asymmetrical writing desk made of walnut with an ash top and ash accents on the pulls has arcing drawers and legs that create an inviting space to sit. | Photo: Matt Downer

Downer didn’t set out to become a furniture maker. He was majoring in philosophy and religious studies at California State University, Chico, in 1989 when he happened upon a book titled Lathe-Turned Objects. “I didn’t even know what a wood lathe was,” he says, “but I figured out that the wood spins, and the artist shapes it with a chisel. I thought, ‘Oh man, this is the coolest thing.’”

The spirit of making had always run deep in him. As a child, he built catapults and skateboard ramps. In college it was bowls in midnight sessions with his lathe. “Once the lathe bit me, I was hooked,” he says. Though he never attended a formal design school, Downer sees that as a hidden gift. “No one was telling me how to do something. I had to figure it out from scratch,” he says. “It helped me develop something that’s uniquely mine.”

A combination bench and bookshelf brings together a floating live-edge bench made of English elm, and a rectilinear steel bookshelf for an intriguing blend of organic and industrial. | Photo: Matt Downer

A wood purist for years, Downer now also uses stone and metals in his work. Some of his most striking elements come from right beneath his feet—stones from Rico’s mining past, layers that predate the Cambrian explosion.

“Sometimes I marvel at the fact that this stone that I am working with formed over 1.6 billion years ago—prior to the formation of complex life on our planet—and here I am sculpting it into something new and unique,” he says. “It’s a very heady feeling.”

A sculptural desk lamp of African bubinga has a wing-like horizontal arm that conceals inset LED lights. The curves of the wood contrast with the polished steel vertical element. | Photo: Matt Downer

Inspired by Japanese architecture, Old World techniques and the quirks of his own experience, Downer’s pieces often incorporate exposed joinery, pegged-through tenons and graceful curves. He prefers walnut for its character and depth.

But he’ll just as readily haul a dead spruce out of the Colorado forest and craft it into a free-form table base. “I find myself asking, ‘What’s living inside this chunk of wood? What can I do to make it more than just a piece of lumber?’” He says, “I want to make a block of wood feel light and elegant. If I can pull that off, I know I’m on the right track.”

The artist applies a coat of oil to a wall-mounted shelf built of cherry and spalted maple wood. | Photo: Matt Downer

Living and working in a remote town like Rico has its challenges—especially when your furniture is too big to move alone. “There’ve been so many times I needed to flip a nine-foot table and couldn’t find a soul,” he says. “I’d walk out my door, and it’s just birds and tumbleweeds.

I’d go down to the one bar in town, buy someone a beer, and give them 10 bucks to help for five minutes.” Eventually, he built a mobile gantry system. “Picture a giant metal cube on wheels with pulleys and straps,” he explains. “It lets me suspend a piece, spin it, move it around the shop. I had to build it because my neighbors started hiding when they saw me coming.”

A detail of a piece that incorporates light and dark ash in drawers that slide on runners of purpleheart. | Photo: Matt Downer

Today, his workshop hums with collaboration. His longtime woodworking partner Nick Niebuhr now works full-time alongside him, and they’ve recently added a third craftsman, Kyle Gabe.

His work can be found on his own website and at several galleries, including Gold Mountain Gallery in Telluride, Colorado, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Fort Worth, Texas; Luca Decor in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Dovetail Collection in Healdsburg, California. “I feel so lucky to be able to create work that’s unique, valued and original,” Downer says. “It’s a rarified world, and I’m so grateful to do this every day.”

A Calder-inspired chandelier of walnut with a glass counterweight. | Photo: Matt Downer

A 12-foot long live-edge slab of Claro walnut makes an ideal kitchen island in a Telluride, Colorado, home. Ebony butterfly joints help stabilize the wood and provide a contrasting detail to the colorful walnut. | Photo: Matt Downer