7 Creatives Share their Craft
You may have seen their work in art galleries, high-end office spaces, retail megastores or even in a friend’s home (a friend with impeccable taste, that is). They’re the Lehigh Valley’s own “makers,” who know a thing or two about creativity and craftsmanship. They’re making major contributions to the aesthetic pleasures that delight us, excite us and invite introspection, and they’re doing it with their own two hands.
OoAK Furniture
Chris Bryant | Owner/Designer
If you’ve been ruminating over an office makeover, or seeking out an upgrade for your home décor, instead of clicking “add to cart” on whatever mass-produced pieces pop up on a Google search, maybe it’s time to check in with the expert craftsmen at OoAK Furniture. “It’s all about customization,” says company president Chris Bryant. “You just get a more hands-on experience.”
Bryant, a Texas transplant who moved to the East Coast in 2013, is one member of a small team of five that brings a combined 20-plus years of experience to the table. They’re trying to carve out a name for themselves in the competitive custom furniture business by offering residential and commercial clients a little something extra, just as the company name itself suggests; the additional “o” in OoAK rounds out an acronym that stands for “one of a kind.”
OoAK was founded in 2019 and operates primarily out of a 9,000-square-foot warehouse on Union Boulevard in Allentown, although Bryant also keeps an apartment in Manhattan and frequently travels between the Lehigh Valley and the Big Apple. They’re proud to use locally sourced wood that’s harvested in a sustainable, eco-friendly way. “We only use fallen trees in our hardwood projects,” Bryant says. OoAK is also working toward its FSC certification, a designation bestowed by the Forest
Stewardship Council that means a company’s products comply with the highest social and environmental standards on the market. “It's about taking responsibility and holding ourselves accountable for the things that we make, which will most likely outlive us,” Bryant says.
As for the style of OoAK’s pieces, Bryant describes it as timeless. Clients are encouraged to contribute their own ideas to the design process. “Bring the inspiration,” he says.
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Knecht Parts & Assembly
Matt Laska | Owner
Matt Laska, owner of Knecht Parts and Assembly, does a very particular thing for a very particular niche. “My product is a boutique laser-cutting service,” he explains via email. “I'm an artisan manufacturer who works with designers, millwork companies and brands. I take on the granular-level details that come up inside of larger projects, like dimensional logos and engraved panels.” But he pursues smaller, personal projects as well, so while you may have seen his work in places like Nike’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, you may also have seen his work in Easton’s Centre Square, where Laska was selling Pennsylvania Dutch-themed, laser-cut ornaments during the city’s winter-village shopping experience late last year.
Laska moved his studio from Queens to Easton in February 2020. He also moved himself—he and his fiancée settled in the West Ward. “In conversations with friends, Easton came up a lot,” he says. “We came here and we loved it. We thought, ‘This is the right-size city for us.’”
He previously worked in construction, carpentry and scenery and even put his expertise to work for a season of Saturday Night Live. He later moved on to general fabrication before he purchased a small laser cutter and began to explore that world. “It’s really predictable,” explains Laska. “Machines are dependable. But there is still a lot of feeling and intention. It’s about the communication of creative ideas and the execution of the installation work.”
Laska says he hopes to build upon those creative partnerships in his new hometown. The pandemic has made meeting new people and collaborating with other artists and designers difficult, but Laska points to the winter village as a bright spot on his calendar, and says he’s looking forward to being a vendor at other Easton community events, like Garlic Fest.
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Market & High Co.
Michelle Chrin & Tim Frankenfield | Co-owners
Michelle Chrin and Tim Frankenfield have a unique “how we met” story: They’re actually not sure how they met. They traveled in overlapping social circles over the years before reconnecting at Musikfest in 2014. Fast-forward three years later and they were opening their own glass blowing studio in Bethlehem, Market & High Co., named for the streets where they lived when that fortuitous crossing-of-paths happened at Musikfest.
Although Chrin had a background in the digital arts, she says she had never set foot inside a glass studio prior to getting reacquainted with Frankenfield. “I was terrified! Everything was on fire,” she says with a laugh.
“I remember saying to him, ‘What possessed you to do this for a living?’” Frankenfield, in fact, had attended Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia with the intention of pursuing photography as a career. But then he took a summer class in glass blowing. “That was it,” he says.
Now Frankenfield—who’s been blowing glass full-time for more than 20 years—spends his days in the couple’s studio, and Chrin, who has a full-time job in communications for a Fortune 500 company, continues to grow more comfortable with the delicate, demanding, time-consuming process that yields the one-of-a-kind glassware, shapes, vessels and orbs that are the hallmark of Market & High. “He’s giving me new things to do each and every day,” says Chrin. “I’m finding my studio legs more and more.” Although Frankenfield may be in the driver’s seat for the manufacturing process, Chrin is the true yin to his yang when it comes to design aesthetics. “I can look at something Tim has made and say, ‘Have you considered this?’”
They used the pandemic-induced slowdown of 2020 to conduct their own “R&D,” as Chrin dubs it, and to come up with a new series of pieces. Like a lot of their fellow artists, they’re hoping for a return to normalcy this year. But whatever 2021 brings, they’re in it together. “It’s a great feeling to be able to create beautiful objects with your partner, your best friend,” says Frankenfield.
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Celebration Paintings
Andy Greenlee | Owner/Artist
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a personalized painting that captures that same moment in real time is probably worth even more. Andy Greenlee would almost certainly agree. She began her career in live painting about six years ago, and now travels to special events all over the country with her easel in tow as she grows her company, Celebration Paintings.
Greenlee, a Montgomery County native who now calls Orefield home, says she always had a knack for the arts. “It was such a comfortable language for me, the language of the visual arts,” she says. “It always felt very comfortable.” She was teaching at the high school level when her mother-in-law, a fellow artist, approached her about giving live painting a try. First Greenlee had to figure out the logistics of transforming her stationary studio into a mobile operation; once at the event, she had to establish a balance between interacting with guests and focusing on the painting taking shape with her careful brushstrokes. “I get a little stage fright before the event,” Greenlee says, “but once I arrive and set up, I’m so relaxed as soon as I get behind the easel. I’m in the zone.”
While weddings make up the bulk of her business, Greenlee says she’s also been invited to put her artistry to work during other noteworthy occasions, like retirement dinners, milestone birthday celebrations and bar and bat mitzvahs. “I’m open to whatever someone has envisioned,” Greenlee says.
She takes the task at hand very seriously, knowing that her interpretation of the happenings unfolding before her will be cemented as a very personal memory for the painting’s recipients. “I love bearing witness to these moments and knowing that the painting will be displayed in homes and likely be passed on for generations,” she says. “It becomes a family heirloom.”
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The Steel Beam
Fay Fitch | Owner
A trip to The Steel Beam is like visiting a museum, an artist’s workshop and a retail boutique all in one place. The shop moved from Main Street in Bethlehem to Bethlehem Township last year, and owner Fay Fitch says her diligent team is putting the
extra square footage to good use, expanding their line of home décor, apparel, accessories, handmade jewelry and historical pieces. Many of the items come from local artists and designers; others are the team’s own handiwork, one of the benefits of having an on-site workshop. “We’re literally hammering things out in the back,” says Fitch.
A common theme in many of the designs is local industry. Anyone familiar with Lehigh Valley history will easily recognize companies that have left their mark on the region’s manufacturing story, like Bethlehem Steel and Mack Trucks. “We have a passion for collecting industrial artifacts with a rich history,” Fitch says. Some of those artifacts are then repurposed for modern-day use; Fitch provides an example of a Mack Trucks bulldog hood ornament that was converted into a touch lamp. The Steel Beam also has unearthed other relics, like a Bethlehem Steel stock certificate, and a first edition hardcover Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog from 1902–1903.
Other pieces, like the handmade jewelry, may not be such an obvious nod to a particular manufacturing giant, but the influence is still there in the shapes, colors and textures. “We try to integrate the past, present and future in everything we do,” Fitch explains. “We’re on a journey together to work toward a common aesthetic.” And maintaining old-world craftsmanship, she says, is key.
Fitch hopes public workshops will be an option in the near future, where the curious and the creative can converge on The Steel Beam for a crash course in making everything from soaps to lamps to essential oils to jewelry.
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Douglas Ihlenfeld
Douglas Ihlenfeld | Sculptor
As a child, Douglas Ihlenfeld didn’t have to turn to schoolbooks for a lesson in the fine arts. His father is world-renowned metal sculptor Klaus Ihlenfeld. The younger Ihlenfeld recalls watching him weld with an acetylene torch on their family farm in Barto, Berks County. But his father’s interest in the arts didn’t begin and end with metals. “He was so much into watercolors, oil paints,” recalls Ihlenfeld. “He was a real across-the-board artist in every medium.” Of course, Douglas Ihlenfeld is now an artist in his own right, drawing inspiration from his father as well as another local luminary in the arts: Harry Bertoia, a sculptor, jewelry maker and furniture designer who was born in Italy but moved to Barto in Berks County in 1950; Klaus Ihlenfeld was his studio assistant, and later Douglas Ihlenfeld lived for many years on the Bertoia family property, where he was surrounded by the artist’s modernist sculptures.
Despite his family pedigree, Douglas Ihlenfeld wasn’t always on a path to follow in his father’s footsteps. He began his career as an electrician in the U.S. Army, working on aircraft like Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Later, he started welding on his own after he graduated from the Welder Training and Testing Institute in Allentown. He says he made the shift to full-time artist about 12 years ago, the culmination of what he calls a gradual process. Ihlenfeld describes his style as the exploration of new designs with old-school techniques, using non-ferrous metals such as copper, bronze and brass. “There’s some sort of connection with the metal,” he says. “The metals themselves are so down-to-earth.”
Ihlenfeld’s work has been awarded a number of prizes and has been shown in several local galleries, including the Allentown Art Museum, Moravian College’s Payne Gallery and the Siegel Gallery at Lehigh University. But perhaps his number one fan—and number one critic—is just a quick mile-and-a-half trek down the road from him in Barto: his father, Klaus. “He’s definitely a good person to judge my work,” Ihlenfeld says. “He tells me if it’s good or not.”
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Al Johnson
Al Johnson | Mixed Media Artist and Educator
Al Johnson has racked up an impressive array of awards and accolades during a decades-long career that began when he was just a child in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. He was just 10 years old when a local newspaper named him the most talented young artist in his district. He credits his public school teachers with pushing him to explore his considerable gifts. “They were adamant,” he recalls. “‘You’re an artist,’ they said. ‘You have to pursue this.’”
In the years that followed, his portfolio expanded as he found success in all areas of the visual arts, including mural painting, life drawing and painting, illustration and storyboard art for big-name movie studios like MGM. Now the Lehigh Valley is lucky enough to claim him as its own; Johnson moved to Easton and became one of the artists in residence at Bethlehem’s Banana Factory. “It’s a great institution for what it does for the community,” he says of the arts center, where he’s hosted several pre-pandemic painting workshops and hopes to do so again in the future.
Johnson made the leap to abstract art about 14 years ago, following some introspection. “When I hit 50, I began to look at my life from about 14 to 50 [years old]. [I realized] all I’ve been doing is creating artwork on commission.” But now, he says, he’s doing art straight from his heart. He’s typically working on anywhere from four to eight pieces at a time; he never knows when inspiration will strike, and what the source of that inspiration will be; it could be a poem, a song lyric, a turn of phrase or something cosmic or other-worldly. He’s also constantly experimenting with the chemistry side of art—mixing paints and other materials to navigate new ways of expression. “This is a continual journey for me,” says Johnson.
