Gregory Crispell is a land surveyor by trade. In his spare time, the Garland resident enjoys making maple syrup. He has even done a little middle-school basketball coaching. But Gregory Crispell, wood artist? That’s one job title Crispell never expected to put on his resume, at least not until recently.

Garland man enters Rockport center's Maine Wood 2010 exhibit

By Jessica Bloch
BDN Staff

Bangordailynews.com: Gregory Crispell is a land surveyor by trade. In his spare time, the Garland resident enjoys making maple syrup. He has even done a little middle-school basketball coaching.

But Gregory Crispell, wood artist?

That’s one job title Crispell never expected to put on his resume, at least not until recently.

But the time Crispell has spent in Maine’s forests has driven him to explore his creative side, he said, and led him to submit a piece of work to Maine Wood 2010, the biennial exhibition organized by the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and now on display in the center’s Messler Gallery.

Crispell’s entry, a box made of sugar maple and fabril which he calls “Twelve Lights,” won him the Best New Maker award.

That’s right - at the age of 57, Crispell is the rookie of the year. In fact, he was just happy that his piece was one of 20 works chosen out of 120 entries to the exhibition.

“The truly exciting thing was getting selected,” he said. “Everything at the Messler Gallery I consider to be really fine stuff, and to have my stuff in there is really pretty special. Most of the other people that were selected are professional people, furniture makers or woodworkers. I’m the new person.”

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