PROFILE - TED TUDOR, WOODS BY TUDOR

Public Record, The, Mar 23, 2001 by Brown, Steve

Ted Tudor walked with a slight bent and occasional grimace after hurting his back preparing for his handcrafted furniture show last weekend at Devane's Restaurant. Actor William Devane owns some of Tudor's work.

It was pre-show nerves causing the back trouble, Tudor said. Interior designers throughout the valley were invited to the show. In his Woods by Tudor workshop in north Indio, Tudor demonstrated the techniques lie used to create his work for the show - massive pieces in various stages of completion.

Tudor is a large, ruddy man, an artisan who handcrafts custom furniture. One of his larger pieces, a bed frame crafted of peeled lodgepole pine, exudes a surprisingly soft, inviting presence, though it is anything but delicate. Boasting smooth graceful lines, a mission style armoire awaits finishing touches, while a lithe four-poster bed stands nearby.

Now a full-time desert resident. Tudor first spent years as it winter visitor in the Coachella Valley, summering at his ranch in Idaho. Gradually he built and furnished his Idaho ranch house. During winters here, he designed and built gates and including those at the Empire and El Dorado polo clubs. After constructing a picnic table for club employees, Tudor received an order for ten more, and then an additional ten. His furniture crafting business had begun.

That was in the 1980s. Since his initial picnic table commission. Tudor has sold his rustic custom furniture to clients from Sun River to El Paso, from Santa Barbara to Aspen. He has exhibited his work in La Quinta Arts Foundation shows and Indio's Southwest Arts Festival, as well as at polo club events. To craft his trademark furniture, he has shipped in truckloads of lodgepole pine through a friend in Idaho.

A better craftsman than salesman, Tudor is now trying to reach a larger audience. The show at Devane's was his first step. The next is to find an appropriate retail outlet to display his work, which ranges from king size bunk beds, dressers and decorative lodgepole ladders, to tables, chairs and couches - furniture as comfortable and durable as it is inviting.

"My present work is taken from old designs, but I'm getting into newer styles and bigger proportions," he explains.

Tudor plans to offer decorative branding designs and routed Hopi surface patterns to augment the southwest theme. He fills custom orders for indoor and outdoor furniture, finished to the customer's preference. For one client, he created an enormous outdoor child's castle play area that could make most young boys green with envy.

When Tudor turns the pages of photo albums that document his past commissions, pictures both of his work and his smiling children catch the eye, showcasing his two passions, as well as the variety of his handcrafted projects.

Moving around pieces of his furniture being finished for the Devane's show, a thin layer of sawdust infuses his workshop with a light scent of pine. The workshop's atmosphere is resplendent with the simple pride of a mail who makes useful furniture that is simple and rustic, yet elegant and graceful.