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By Cynthia Marone
It’s been quite a year for Mark Sfirri — and it’s only the halfway point — but 2024 wasn’t so bad either. Last year, the artist added another national award to his list of accolades, and this year saw solo shows of his sculptures that opened in late 2024 at two different museums continue their simultaneous runs. This hat trick occurring at the same time certainly wasn’t planned that way — and that’s exactly how Mark prefers it. “A lot of makers, you could identify their work because every piece is tied to the next one, and it has a similar kind of feel to it. For me, I like a whole new landscape. The expression I use is linear versus big bang theory, and I'm a big bang theory kind of guy,” the 72-year-old said. “What am I going to be making tomorrow? I don't know. It depends on what side of the bed I wake up on. When I walk out to the shop, I could be starting a new print or I could be designing the next big thing.”
Primarily a furniture maker and sculptor working in wood, Mark has plenty of other jumping-off points to fill his creative blank slate when he heads to the studio near his New Hope home. He could craft another masterpiece, whether it’s in the form of furniture, a turning or a sculpture, or maybe he will resume his research on artist and designer Wharton Esherick or continue curating a show. Perhaps his photography or printmaking will win out, or it’ll be time to write a book or an article. No matter the artform, Mark always meets his muse.
He has been in more than 300 exhibitions, and his most recent showcases, “Mark Sfirri: The Flower Show” at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown and “La Famiglia” at the Museum for Art in Wood in Philadelphia, were his first ever solo museum shows. If they closed before you could catch them, no need to worry. Mark’s creations can be found in museums throughout the country, as well as Europe, including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Musée de Bugey-Valromey in France, the Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawaii and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Mark’s work has appeared in 260 publications, and he has written numerous articles and been a juror or curator for 30 exhibitions. The lion’s share of this was done while presenting more than 200 workshops and lectures and teaching full time at Bucks County Community College for 36 years as a coordinator of and professor in its fine woodworking program. He was honored with the college’s Professional Achievement Award for Faculty in 1987. Numerous other accolades have come his way, including on the national level with last year’s American Association of Woodturners’ Professional Outreach Program Merit Award, 2012’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Collectors of Wood Art, now known as the Wood Art Alliance, and 2010’s Distinguished Educator Award from The James Renwick Alliance for Craft of The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Seeing the numbers, it’s hard to believe Mark did not start out with a passion for wood turning or even woodworking, though his grandfather was a cabinetmaker. His first foray into the artform came out of need: He made balsa wood dividers for his coin collection holder. The next was by way of requirement when his seventh-grade art class assigned a carving. He chose to craft a dog. “I wouldn't say it was huge spark. In hindsight, it's something I did and I can remember and it's part of how I got to where I'm going,” Mark, who grew up in Middletown Township in Delaware County, said. “Tenth grade is when we could major in art. That was revelatory to me, just opening up the floodgates of all the possibilities of all the different kinds of things one could do in the art realm.”
If the flame caught at Penncrest High School in Delaware County, where Mark studied everything from drawing to painting to silk screen five days a week until his 1970 graduation, it only grew at the Rhode Island School of Design. Mark, who is known for his multi-axis spindle turning, graduated with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in furniture design in the 1970s and went on to become the director of design and engineering for an office furniture manufacturer. His three years of industry experience turned out to be crucial to his life’s path. “Other people were getting their degrees and trying to get a teaching job somewhere and continue with their artistic work. By me doing this, I didn't take that route,” Mark, who has been married to wife Lucy Green for 45 years, said. “On the other hand, it's what gave me the edge when I applied to the program at Bucks County Community College.”
Mark retired from the Newtown school in 2017 and holds the title of professor emeritus. Along the way, he shaped the lives of countless students, cofounded and co-organized the annual Echo Lake Collaborative Conference that, to this day, brings together students and artists, and personally collaborated with the college’s painting and drawing instructor Robert Dodge. For years, the two created pieces such as folding screens, sculptures and furniture. That is, until the recession hit in the 1990s. “What it seemed to affect the most was the furniture market. I noticed sales ending, drying up,” Mark, whose creations also include 2D pieces, said. “So instead of thinking about the market, I was thinking about myself as a creator. That's when the baseball bats and the candlesticks and the figures, all of that stuff emerged in the 1990s. I think it comes through that a lot of it is a humorous kind of look, but it was just me doing things I found fun and interesting. That was the major shift for me.”
“Rejects from the Bat Factory,” which are surprisingly shaped baseball bats, are in the collections of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory in Kentucky and the Smithsonian, among others. What would become his signature series was inspired by his son Sam’s request for a bat he spotted at a game. The then-6-year-old made his case for its creation by pointing out Mark already had the wood and the lathe. “When I did that, I thought, 'There's something really interesting about a bat being a 100 per cent functional. Every aspect of the design of it is about pure function. Maybe I could use that as a blank canvas for creating different effects, like having a bat look like it hit a ball and got deformed out of shape and it almost looks like it's clay or something like that,'” Mark, who lived in Doylestown prior to his move to New Hope in 1983, said. “Giving the material — wood — characteristics that aren't native to the material just seemed like a really intriguing idea.”
Decades later, Sam again unwittingly would inspire his father. When he and his fiancée Kim were to be married at a spot that did not allow fresh flowers, Mark volunteered to create a substitute that would include boutonnieres and the bridal bouquet. This would grow into “The Flower Show.”
“The Flower Show” running alongside “La Famiglia” was great timing and pure chance. The latter was ready to go but was delayed due to the pandemic. Playing on the theme of family, it eventually opened six weeks before the equally family-tied “Flower Show.” Both continued into 2025. “All that represents about eight years’ worth of work,” Mark, who is the grandfather to 1 year-old Simona, said. “It's just coincidental both shows were up at the same time.”
The shows’ appearances may be serendipitous, but when it comes to inspiration, the muse arrives, as it has throughout Mark’s career, in the same way: with a bang. “What I find most exciting is when I touch on a new direction or I'm working in a series and I have a new piece that evolved from the one that I did before it. I don't really have a plan,” Mark Sfirri said. “There's something about the spontaneity of design that's just very appealing to me and needs to be nurtured.”
For more information about Mark Sfirri and his artwork, visit www.marksfirri.com.
Cynthia Marone is a freelance writer who lives in Philadelphia.