Louro Faia.

Sounds like the name of a beautiful, exotic woman. Italian? Celtic? Can't you just picture her? She wears very expensive Italian linen tailored slacks (which never wrinkle) and a wispy cloud of a blouse with shell buttons: RIGHT?!

Wrong.

Louro Faia is an exotic hardwood, not an exotic woman. It’s found across Central and South America, especially Ecuador and Brazil…and in the latest fantastic creation of local furniture maker Charley Radtke.

Charley is one of Cedarburg’s precious natural resources. His work has found its way to the Smithsonian (http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=44245) and into the homes of fortunate collectors worldwide.

His current work is called a Collector's Vault, designed to hold a collection of specific things. Charley’s intent is to build seven to nine small lock boxes that will fit snuggly inside the vault to house whatever collection it is holding. In addition to lauro faia, the vault is crafted of maple, tiger maple, pernambuco (a scarce wood used mainly for stringed instrument bows), cork and gold leaf; and it is lined with Spanish cedar.

I have had the thrill of visiting Charley’s studio twice now, and both times I feel like I have visited a cathedral. I come away awestruck. To say that Charley makes furniture is like saying that Pavarotti sings songs. Like all great artists, Charley has defined or redefined the genre.

Charley coaxes rich and deep pattern from the grain of the lumber lying in piles around his studio and then—somewhat like Native American parents waiting until the personality of a child shows itself before naming her—he waits to see what the pattern reveals. The results are pieces of “furniture”—mostly cabinets—whose only resemblance to the stuff in my house is that they’re made of wood and have legs.

Under his plane and application of layer upon layer of French polish (he applied 80 layers the day after I was there), Charley breathes life back into dead trees, creating boards that feel like velvet, look like a reflecting pool, and become the basis for museum-quality pieces.

For a comprehensive and revealing interview with Cedarburg furniture maker Charley Radtke by (Cedarburg’s own) W.A. Reed in (Cedarburg’s own) “Porcupine” magazine, click here:

http://www.porcupineliteraryarts.com/CharlesRadtke.html

Charley's own website offers a furniture feast for the eyes (take a walk around his "gallery" pages) at: www.charlesradtke.com.