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His family, meanwhile, told him, Well, that s a great hobby, but you really ought to work for a big corporation — you can make furniture when you retire.”
Finally, he said, he took the plunge and began his career as a cabinetmaker. His first shop, where he designed mainly traditional style pieces, had ceilings so low that he had to take the pieces outside to put them together.
From the beginning, he remembered, he resisted the temptation to produce “reproduction” pieces using drawings and measurements. The furniture was traditional in style, “because I liked that kind of furniture.” It was, he explained, “as if I had lived 200 years ago that’s what kind I would have done.”
From those traditional beginnings, Mr. Kramer’s designs progressed “geometrically, one little idea perfected becoming the germ of 10 more ideas.” The progression also moved into more complicated designs — and away from the early American style.
Though his more recent pieces still have many of the proportions of traditional furniture, the designs and artistic embellishments reveal a craftsman who has broken the bonds with that journeyman who designed furniture as if he had lived 200 years ago.
“I still epjoy and appreciate that,” he said. “It’s not a rejection. It’s just that the palette has gotten so huge, I’ve got to try it. That’s where the exhilaration, the fun, and the reward come from.
“I dropped the limits,” Mr. Kramer said with a smile. “I’m trying to see what will come out.” In a sense, the designs are still market-driven, he confessed. “If a customer will not buy a piece, it discourages you from going farther down that road.”
But, he quickly added, “there is never enough time in a day to explore all of those ideas.” They often feed off the pieces just completed, and encourage exploration of yet other areas of design.
And as a piece evolves, there are decisions to be made; sometimes as basic as choosing a square leg or a round leg.
“It’s not that one is right or wrong,” he explained. “It’s an emotion or feeling. But the one not picked often sits around screaming, ‘What about me?’ ”
The ideas, the options not chosen, all “sit around cooking,” providing yet more mental fodder for future designs.
Recently, Mr. Kramer has produced several collaborative pieces with other artists. “Slice of the Beach” is one. It would be a rather traditional corner table were it not for the brightly painted top, which depicts a beachfront scene as viewed from the water looking toward land. The panoramic cross-section ranges from the ocean floor to the sky, with animals and plants in between. The table was designed by Mr. Kramer, and the painting was done by Walter Hyde, a painter who lives on Cape Cod.
Another such piece is “Mother’s Day,” a table again designed by Mr. Kramer. The leg design is based on an
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