Harry Siter

Harry Siter is an American artist and furniture maker whose work is rooted in direct engagement with raw materials and the act of making itself. Since the early 1990s, Siter has worked almost exclusively with whole trees, transforming trunks into furniture and sculptural forms through a process that blends invention, engineering, and physical labor.

Using chainsaws to shape his materials, Siter favors straightforward, time-tested methods for surfacing and finishing, allowing the character of the wood to remain present. Over decades of practice, he has developed a deep technical understanding of how to stabilize thick slabs of wood and integrate them with metal, expanding both the structural and expressive possibilities of his work.

Rather than beginning with standardized lumber, Siter approaches each piece as a response to the individual tree itself—its size, density, and inherent limitations guiding the final form. This process of discovery, shaped by material resistance and physical endurance, results in objects that feel simultaneously elemental and deliberate. His work speaks through mass, texture, and proportion, giving new life to materials often considered inert, and asserting making as an act of continual learning and transformation.