Artisanal Art from a.r.t.a.e.

We have our a.r.t.a.e. studio and gallery opening coming up on Saturday, October 13th. The opening will include acrylic furniture, paintings, sculpture, artwork, and more like the enormous chandelier pictured above. There is also a sneak peak for those of you without patience at the Old Vine Cafe on Sunday, October 7th.

How Our Custom Furniture Starts

Our furniture starts as a sketch or a rendering as seen above. This specific desk calls for a combination of steel and acrylic. Because we are a small company we have the flexibility to work with different materials.

Manutailer Studio

I found this photo of our art studio from when we were setting it up. The artae gallery is our fully functioning design studio / lab / showroom. We feel like mad scientists over there only we are creating beautiful art with our experimentation.

Pillows

Above are a few pillows that Anne has made for some of our projects. Each pillow is hand made and stitched with a homemade felt from recycled sweaters. They are perfect for warming up a cool acrylic chair.

Automotive Quality Painting Capabilites

After taking over the warehouse next door and turning it into a gallery and studio we also have turned the back into a complete automotive grade painting facility. This allows us some exciting options when it comes to creating custom furniture. Above are some bar stools we made for a Malaysian telecommunications company, DiGi. They wanted a fun, retro, paint scheme to match their company image. These are only four of the over 50 pieces we created for them.

Hard Candy Box

This is our "Hard Candy Box" These beautiful boxes are manufactured here and polished to a pristine shine. Here are some photos of the boxes in progress as well as a finished version

A New Way

Acrylic Furniture Designer, Aaron R. Thomas, Clears the Haze in the Online Furniture Business

Free Shipping

We know how irritating it can be to finally find the perfect piece of furniture online only to find out that it will cost 20% - 30% more upon checkout because of shipping and handling charges. We decided to do something about this. We will ship everything we sell anywhere in the United States or Canada for absolutely free. The price you see is the price you pay (unless you are a California, then you have to pay pesky sales tax). The great news is that all of our prices are so fair that even with sales tax you are getting an amazing deal.

Demanutaillery?

As if we needed something else to keep us occupied we have added a gallery to our already busy juggling act of designing, manufacturing, and retailing. We have taken over the empty office/warehouse space next door and turned the area into a huge studio gallery. A.r.t.a.e gallery (standing for Aaron R. Thomas and Anne Ewen) will show artwork by...Aaron R. Thomas and Anne Ewen. Currently we have sculptures, paintings, an expansive chandelier, and retail displays there along with custom painted furniture and new furniture designs.

Another Manutailer

I found out about "Redhouse" today. They are another independent furniture company that both manufacture and retail their products. They are making some fun things. Take a look.

Aaron R. Thomas Stays Ahead of the Curve

By Manutailing in-house, and in the USA, Aaron R. Thomas has pushed the entire furniture industry to be better. Now by including up-front pricing and free shipping, Aaron R. Thomas is setting the industry on fire once again. "When people pay for a table or chair that they find in a showroom they are paying for it to be there anyways, why should it be any different if someone wants to buy something online?"

Manutailer

The concept of a "Manutailer" has been around for ages yet somehow seems so progressive at this point in history. Ages ago a blacksmith was just a blacksmith who created and sold necessary goods in order to make a living. He was good at what he did, he worked his craft at his shop, and he sold to whoever needed his products. At some point in time, with the expansion of both the national and global markets, this concept was broken down into it's most simple elements; the manufacturer, the retailer, but also a myriad of other facets such as marketers, advertisers, shippers, distributors, resellers, etc.

This blog is poised to take a step forward while looking back in order to evaluate who is currently a "Manutailer" and how they are benefiting both themselves and the consumer. I first became enamored with the idea of a manutailer while filling out tax information for a company I started in 2003. My company designed, printed, and sold clothing directly to the end wearer. While filling out tax sheets I was stymied by the lack of designation for a company that did everything in house. Since I was manufacturing, advertising, distributing, and retailing it was hard to categorize my business according to existing designations. For tax reasons it made sense to be considered a manufacturer at times and a retailer at other times. For census reasons the line was also blurred, did I want to be counted in the next "manufacturing is up 19% in this country" when I was creating what I considered art?

I invite all of my readers to contribute examples of who is a "manutailer" in this day and age. Let's start with the A's, I would like to throw two companies that I know of personally into the ring for closer inspection; American Apparel, and Aaron R. Thomas design