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Lithia Man Goes Against The Grain

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

dlwhite@tampatrib.com

Published: March 18, 2009

LITHIA - Gil Samreny has spent the past nine years knocking on wood.

However, it's not good luck he's seeking. It's inspiration.

Whether it's the familiar mahogany and cherry or the more exotic purpleheart and padauk woods, Samreny carefully inspects the grain, color, texture and natural defects of each piece of lumber. Then he waits for the wood to announce its future role.

In Samreny's Lithia workshop, under his careful ministration, the lumber is transformed. It might become a modernistic coffee table resembling a Jurassic creature, or a his-and-hers nightstand modeled after the famous 1934 Zigzag Chair by designer Gerrit Thomas Rietveld.

He might mix woods, allowing their natural colors to be revealed in the joints and dovetailing - as he did with his banana-leg coffee table that garnered a first-place award at this year's Florida State Fair Family Living Woodworking Competition.

"I try to see how far I can stretch the joinery, or try to come up with my own flow," he said.

He might mix styles, combining art deco and traditional influences in a cabinet with improbably long legs in a style that's all his own.

For Samreny, creating furniture isn't as much about the accomplishment as it is about the challenge. His goal is to make functional, beautiful pieces of furniture using innovative techniques.

The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel got his first taste of woodworking in 1979, when he built a cradle for his first-born daughter.

But as a military family - his wife, Cleopatra, is a colonel in the Air Force - they were frequently on the move, and Samreny never had the luxury of accumulating the woodworking tools he needed to pursue the craft.

"Then, near the end of my career in 2000, I started getting back into woodworking," he said. "I'd go to yard sales and buy used tools and, pretty soon, I had a studio. Then, one day, I told my wife that I was going to be a furniture maker."

He said he was fortunate to find a mentor in longtime Lithia dairyman-turned-woodcraftsman Vernon Blackadar, an award-winning furniture maker and longtime member of the Woodcrafters Club of Tampa.

"He showed me how to use my tools, what I was doing wrong and inspired me to get involved in competitions," Samreny said.

Samreny remembers Blackadar pointing out that he was sanding his pieces indoors, where the lighting didn't permit him to see the detail. "He told me to always sand in natural sunlight. It's amazing what a help that was to me.

"I learned how to be more efficient with my tools and started to get a feel of what it was like to be good at a craft. I never took any formal woodworking classes, but I received a great education through other woodcrafters like Vernon. What they taught me was as significant as spending five hours in a class. They gave me the incentive to take the next challenge," he said.

Before long, Samreny's pieces were sporting red, blue and yellow ribbons at state fair and woodworking competitions.

But Samreny also discovered that what he saw as natural beauty many show judges viewed as flaws.

To his disappointment, judges would knock off points when he used diseased, or spalted, woods that he chose for their unusual color. He'd lose points for leaving natural blemishes in the wood because he thought they added character.

He'd also lose points if he didn't match up grains of wood, even though his intention was to highlight the textural contrast.

Samreny said those are the characteristics that give a piece of furniture its "soul."

"If a piece of furniture doesn't have soul, it has no value," he said. That's why a 200-year-old chair seems timeless, while a mass-produced plywood, stapled couch is tomorrow's landfill debris, he said.

"You have to take the time to look at a piece of furniture's construction and understand what went into making it," he said. "It's really too bad that they've dropped shop classes from the high school curriculum. Those classes not only give you a sense of how things are put together, but they teach you how to create something functional."

And function is essential when it comes to furniture, Samreny said. He creates pieces that are intended to be heirlooms, passed from generation to generation.

"I believe in function first and form later," he said. "You've got to be able to use it. It can't just be aesthetically pleasing."

He concedes that his tendency is toward modernistic forms. His idol is Sam Maloof, a well-known minimalist furniture maker whose techniques Samreny often uses.

Maloof's iconic rocking chair design is on display in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the White House.

Two years ago, for the couple's 28th anniversary, Samreny's wife arranged for him to meet Maloof at his California gallery.

Samreny still recalls the thrill of talking tools and techniques with the master.

But Samreny's not averse to trying his hand at more classical styles, such as his first-place-winning walnut Pennsylvania German spice box decorated with an inlaid line and berry design.

His latest creation was something he discovered in a 1976 woodworking magazine - spiral library steps. The challenge was to create steps jutting out from a central column that would be strong enough to hold a man's weight.

Blackadar didn't think he could do it. Samreny proved him wrong. The dare took him about 80 hours to complete.

MORE ABOUT WOODCRAFTING

•Members of the Woodcrafters Club of Tampa and the Brandon Woodworkers Club help organize the woodworking competition at the Florida State Fair. Both clubs also encourage and foster skills for beginning woodworkers.

•The Brandon club meets at 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month at the Brandon Woman's Club, 129 N. Moon Ave., Brandon. Annual dues are $25 per family. The club's Web site is www.brandon woodworking.com.

•The Woodcrafters Club of Tampa meets at 7 p.m. the third Thursday of each month at Broad Street Baptist Church, 3809 W. Broad St., Tampa, at 7 p.m. The $25 annual fee includes a member and a spouse. The club's Web site is www.tampawoodcrafters.org.

•The Tampa club also hosts woodworking classes from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays at the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College in the Tech Building, Room 135, 4001 Tampa Bay Blvd. The cost is $45 for six three-hour classes.

•Gil Samreny's furniture is for sale. He also creates custom pieces and recently completed a large mantelpiece with surrounding cabinetry for his FishHawk Trails neighbors. For information, call (813) 651-5952 or e-mail gsamreny@verizon.net.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524.

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