Form and function merge at hands of furniture maker

STANFORDVILLE — Tucked away in a remote and beautiful corner of Stanford, Erik Guzman, his wife Kari, their daughter Hanna and their two dogs enjoy the peace and quiet of country life, while Guzman performs miracles on wood, creating objects d’art.

While his creations are articles of furniture, they are also pieces of art, beautifully designed and highly aesthetic, yet amazingly comfortable.

After a lifetime of “wrestling with the constraints of art and design perception” as his profile states, Guzman said he found a way to merge fine art and technology. He takes wood and creates art that is also functional.

Not just functional — his wooden chairs are extremely comfortable.

Guzman works mainly with hard woods like maple, cherry and walnut. The finished pieces showcase a satin-smooth finish that highlights the beauty of the natural wood grain. Some pieces are created from more than one type of wood.

Bringing art and technology together is a skill Guzman has always employed. His “Weather Beacon” was a part of the River to River Festival 2010 and a public art display for the Hudson River Park in NYC. It mixed science, technology and the visual arts. The multi-media sculpture incorporated CNC Technologies and electronics (according to cnctechnologies.com, “CNC Technologies provides law enforcement and government agencies with custom aviation technology and wireless communication solutions”).

Guzman coupled such skills with his artistic endeavors in New York City, where he also taught at a private art college.

The Guzman both have backgrounds in sculpting,  and both became interested in creating work for individuals, for families and for the home, so they created KHEM Studios. The name is an acronym that uses the first initial of the names of everyone in their family: Kari, Hannah, Eric and Maple, their giant schnauzer. (A second schnauzer has since joined the family.)

The Guzmans found  their dream home and studio in the Harlem Valley. They are able to use locally-sourced wood in their work in a studio that contains an immense amount of state-of-the-art machinery.

That machinery, plus Guzman’s expertise in software, helps turnout chairs, stools, benches, cutting boards and many different types of tables.

His artistry is able to bring forth a certain sense of color and warmth from the wood, a rarity for furniture makers, and his softly-sculpted forms often fool those who look at the pieces from believing they are made of hard woods.

Guzman makes the most of the different wood grains and draws both natural and nonlinear lines out from the wood in the most alluring and surprising of ways. The effect can be mesmerizing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how many people live and work and the function of what home has become for so many. Now, with so many people working and learning remotely and spending the majority of their time in their homes, Guzman said many people are now prioritizing their environment. They want where they live and work to be multifunctional, beautiful and peaceful.

People no longer seem willing for their homes to just simply be their safe havens, merely comfortable abodes to settle in after a day’s work. After several years of design and redesign, Guzman created the NEU! CHAIR. It is the epitome of what he said addresses those concerns and works for all.

KHEM Studios and Guzman were recently featured on Martha Stewart American Made.

They can frequently be found be found at the Saturday Millbrook Farmers Market, held at the Village Green Park at the 3199 Main St., at the corner of Grandview Road and Main Street, from 8 a.m. until noon this summer.

In addition to his cutting-edge chair design, Guzman sells other handmade, originally-designed furniture at the farmers market. He also sells some of his custom cutting boards there.

Aside from various pop up sales, Guzman conducts much of his business online these days, at www.khemstudios.com.