Welcome to our new website.
Gerhart Studios, located in Lancaster, PA, has been designing, carving and delivering wooden, dimensional signs since 1981. Since the mid 1990′s, while still creating dimensional wooden signs, we began to fill a demand for wood sculpture, and custom-made wood furniture, using hand tools exclusively, and helping to preserve traditional woodworking methods.
Dimensional signs are suitable for most businesses, churches, private schools, parks, and municipalities, housing developments, professional offices, farms, and private residences. We also build one-of-a-kind furniture , including benches, chairs, and tables. The sculptures, from smaller wall ornaments to full-size items such as unicorns, rocking horses, and carousel horses are made from a variety of woods, all domestic timbers, using natural finishing products and the best of these materials makes it possible to guarantee our work’s longevity if properly maintained.
We hope you enjoy your visit to our website, and that you’ll contact us about our items for sale and for custom orders; it is here you will find new furniture and sculptures – posted when finished. If you’re interested in a sign, please browse our Gallery page for ideas – or we’re happy to consult with you to turn your vision into reality.
Our History & Vision
When my Dad and I opened in 1981, there was no web, and I received all my orders by “word of mouth”. The previous five years, and the thirty years since then, I have studied to continually improve design and technique. I had decided that all work that was designed and built in the shop would be hand made. First work came from carved and gold leafed signs, with increasingly complex relief a part of the design, and I have carved nearly 2000 since then. I take orders to ship anywhere in the US.
But constant study soon leads in other directions, often to new sources of inspiration.
The character and beauty of wood, the suggestion of flowing movement and strength that lies in the patterns of grain – challenges the designer. If a good and practical use for such a material is to be found, it begs a design that, while in the service of a new form, illustrates the pattern of the tree’s life. For this reason, all the furniture and most sculpture since 1995 is made of wood from a single tree, preserving and displaying its singular story. This imaginative design process begins with the wood itself – even when the intention is figurative, the wood will always speak. And whether unsurfaced, or even still in the trunk, I can lay my hand upon a piece and feel that there is great life within – one that can continue for long years in the same peace and harmony had while growing.
Nature is a partner, with valuable things to tell us, if only we understood. Its order can be seen – beautifully – in the grain patterns of a lovely piece of wood. And whether it is used as a bench, a table, or a sculpture, it feels nourishing to have it in your home
Most wood not for signs is what cabinet shops reject, as having “defects”. The trunks are windfalls, and chances are they will be lost to cord wood or landfill. I find that the qualities that make this material unsuitable also make for the most interesting or exciting grain. Unlike the cabinetmaking, that uses large machinery, with the use of hand tools I work in a “reductive” process, yielding sculpture. This continues for my furniture, sculpting pieces of unified theme to all joint and fit together to make benches, tables and chairs. In this way, it is hoped, the tree lives on.
