For more than 30 years, Wendy Maruyama has pushed the envelope of furniture design, creating pieces that combine Asian-inspired clean lines with an unusual artistic vision. And for more than 20 years, she’s been encouraging her furniture design students to do the same.

Maruyama received her undergraduate degree in artisanry from Boston University in 1978 and her Masters of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1980. Shortly after receiving finishing school herself, Maruyama began teaching others about the art of woodworking and furniture design, first at the Appalachain Center for Crafts in Smithville, TN, from 1980 to 1985, then at the California College of Arts and Crafts from 1985 to 1989, and since 1989, at San Diego State University.

This June, the Furniture Society presented Maruyama with an Award of Distinction at their annual conference, honoring her lifetime achievement as a furniture designer and educator.

Here, Maruyama talks about how designing furniture and teaching furniture design are labors of love.

Furniture Style: Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you originally become interested in designing furniture?

Wendy Maruyama: I started making furniture in a crafts class that I took in 1972. This class covered the basic craft areas: wood, clay, textiles, and metals. At the time, crafts was enjoying a revival, and there was a great deal of interest in the field. I made a three legged chair made of walnut and leather and was completely hooked.

Furniture Style: How has the studio furniture business (or the furniture business in
general) changed since you started designing furniture? Where do you see
studio furniture going from here?

Maruyama: The studio furniture field (when I started) initially was focused primarily in small wood studios. This has changed. Studios have become more sophisticated technically, and the materials have begun to diversify. Studio furniture is no longer specific to wood, but practitioners are using metal, plastics, glass, leather, resins and found objects, and the technology is becoming digital and utilizing CAD/CAM and 3-D rendering computer programs.

And there are more of us out there.  

Furniture Style: When you design a piece of furniture, where do you get your inspiration?

Maruyama: Throughout the past 25 years my work has been influenced by my travels and these trips have resulted in various bodies of work: There was the “French” series, and then the “English” series, and now I am on my Asian kick, having been to Japan, Korea and China in the past 12 years.

Furniture Style: Why do you love designing furniture? What is fulfilling about it for you?

Maruyama: Right now, I guess I would say it’s the culmination of being able to see all that I have learned over the years, both from former professors and craftspeople and from experience. It’s nice to be able to execute something and handle the tools well and think, “Dang, I’m good at this.” Other times I have been challenged by projects that might take off like a runaway train and the end never seems to be near, but then it does eventually come and there is relief and satisfaction in that.

Truthfully, to make meaningful pieces that actually function is very gratifying to me.  

Furniture Style: You have taught many young people about furniture design throughout the years. What are some of the most important things that you try to impart to your students? What skills do students need to have to be successful
furniture makers?
Maruyama: Oh, there are so many skills to be learned. That’s the hardest part because for every approach to furniture, it requires a completely different skill set. For example, I may have 18 people taking a beginning class — all using plywood for their tables — but all 18 tables are completely different and require different techniques, different joinery, surface decorations etc. It’s a challenge. I’m not interested in seeing 18 identical tables. But because of that, it’s a challenge for me to keep on top of everyone’s projects.  

Most of all, students need to learn to be patient, be willing to make mistakes and make the most of it, and have a sense of humor. Once they gain more experience, they need to be prolific.

Furniture Style: What do you personally try to accomplish in your own furniture designs?

Maruyama: I am not one to stay with one type of work. I like to work in a series and develop a basic language for each series — this keeps me from going all over the place and keeps me focused. When I get tired of it then I move on to a new series of work.

Furniture Style: Why do you love designing furniture and teaching others about the craft? What makes it fulfilling for you?

Maruyama: Teaching furniture is part of a community, and I have always been in the academic environment where groups of people work together to solve problems and talk about their concepts and ideas. I am most comfortable in this sort of environment. I also find that it’s a two-way street as an educator — not only am I teaching students the basics, but I am also learning to be flexible. If a student comes up with an alternative way to do something, and it works, and it’s not conventional, it’s really been a great day! I’ve learned something new, too, but most of all, the student has learned to figure something out through conventional information and distills it into a hybrid technique… Or the student has come up with some cockamamie idea but then it works like a charm, it’s a new revelation. Then when a student gets stumped and swears that there is no way to solve the problem, I might come along and have just the ticket — God, that feels good too. And they look at me and say, “Well, that’s why you’re the teacher! Thanks!”