♪
>> To hear him tell it, you think you might not find
much of interest at Greg Adams' downtown Lapel shop.
>> Um, I make furniture out of sticks.
I guess that's the simplest way to put it.
>> But he would be selling himself just a bit short.
For the past three decades, he's been turning raw willow
into furniture and household items that are sturdy,
functional, and old-fashioned beautiful.
>> The secrets are not mysterious.
The secrets are that you have to work your ass off.
>> And if you are lucky, you might catch Greg
working his, uh, tail off in a patch of willow around town.
>> Watch out.
>> Willow is a broad category of trees and shrubs.
You can find it growing in moisture-rich soils
just about anywhere if you know where to look.
>> I go about finding my material by being observant,
rubbernecking going down the road.
But I'm very experienced with all the back roads
around here for 200 miles.
And I go where nobody else goes.
And consequently, I see things that nobody else sees.
And that will keep me busy for a while.
This is what I use.
This is three years' growth of willow.
And you can see how uniform it is, how smooth,
and there will be a thousand of them like this in one place.
It will all be identical almost.
I cut off these -- I cut off these little pieces.
This is what I might make a basket out of.
I might use this for maybe a trim piece,
and then this will be the arm on a loveseat.
So it's like that.
>> And if you are curious how these sticks
could be fashioned into functional furniture,
you can pop in and watch Greg at work any day of the week.
>> I have set this place up deliberately
to allow people to see how I do things.
So many times you go to a place, where they are making things.
Well, we make this part here,
and then it gets shipped off to, you know, Reno.
And then it gets shipped off to, you know, somewhere else,
and it's like the assembly line.
People get to see how you do things,
they can kind of relate to it.
There's nothing magic about it.
It's very simple.
There's no exotic formula or anything like that.
It's simple carpentry.
I don't really like to do sanding.
I don't like to do saws.
I have a saw, but I hate to use it.
Scares me to death.
This, not so much.
♪
>> Strolling through Greg's workshop,
you can find a wide variety of items crafted over the years,
from the practical, to the beautiful,
to the -- well, unique.
>> Here's a piece of beaver-chewed -- you see that?
To me, that looks like a fish.
It doesn't look like that to anybody else, though.
This is a black willow egg basket.
It's called an egg basket.
Sometimes they call it a butt basket.
It has that butt look to it.
I made this one in '86.
I just loved doing it, because you start out with nothing,
and then it's something.
And not only is it something,
and it's something that will last.
There's no reason why this won't last another 100 years.
I don't know what would stop it.
>> Recently, Greg had the good fortune
to have his work and skill recognized
by the likes of Cory Robinson, Professor of Furniture Design
at the Herron School of Art and Design.
Together, they crafted this willow-covered shelter
at the Newfields Art Museum in downtown Indianapolis.
>> I wanted to work with Greg specifically,
because I knew him to be a regional expert
in greenwood techniques, willow bending specifically.
I think what is interesting about what Greg does
is he has a really kind of unique aesthetic vision
for the things he makes, kind of in the traditions,
but finding his voice with the material.
There's not people around that do what he does.
I couldn't have found a vision without him.
>> And after 30 years, Greg's one-of-a-kind vision
is still clear.
>> What continues to draw me towards making things is the --
just the natural art of nature.
Nature does its own thing.
I kind of like to do my own thing,
and it kind of combines.
Not everything is a home run.
Some things work.
Some things don't.
Our world is so uniform.
So plastic.
Two kinds of people.
People that want something that everybody else has got,
and people who want something that nobody else has got.
I'm your huckleberry for the second one.