November 2025 – Benjamin Gray works as a historical trades interpreter at the Genesee Country Village and Museum, where he spends his days coopering high-end vessels and constructing historically accurate nineteenth-century American furniture. When he’s not at the museum, he applies those same hand tool skills and techniques he acquired as a student in the Furniture Intensive to his own business, Graywood Custom Woodworking.
Benjamin discovered woodworking through the ‘paved waves’ of skateboarding, by experimenting with gluing, cutting, and shaping the intricate forms of veneered skate and longboard decks. He came to CFC to learn steam bending, vacuum pressing, and coopering techniques, and discovered unexpected depths of woodworking, and his interest in hand tools was ignited. Combining his love of history and his deepening passion for hand tools, Ben immersed himself in Shaker and early American-style furniture.
Ben began taking furniture commissions, including a custom barrel for a brewery. This led to an apprenticeship with master cooper Gerry Walter at Genesee Country Village and Museum in Mumford, NY. Ben continued residential and commercial furniture commissions for several years. One morning, he awoke with severe vision loss in one eye and was ultimately diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Ben shares, “Through my diagnosis, I found an entirely new inspiration, motivation, and purpose. I can overcome a lot of the mental struggles and even some physical ones through my hand tool woodworking. Just as we can hone or sharpen a tool, we can do the same for our minds and bodies. I find it motivating to show others with disabilities that they can pursue their passions.”
Ben is grateful to his grandfather, Kenny Barlow, for introducing him to woodworking, and to Aaron Fedarko at CFC for having the patience and enthusiasm to open a world of unknown options and opportunities. Ben also appreciates the fellow woodworkers of the world for unknowingly inspiring, empowering, and embracing him as one of their own in a mostly solitary world of working in a shop, and hopes to inspire others to pursue their interests in woodworking, especially the nearly forgotten techniques of the craft.
