Like hundreds of other furniture and accessories makers, Jeremy Kamiya displayed his designs during this week’s 2021 Fall Market in downtown High Point. Unlike the vast majority of them, the all-wood pieces are original designs, made by Kamiya in his home’s garage just blocks away from the Market District.
With a bent toward furniture as art, Kamiya’s original designs — he’s up to 54 of them now — present a harmonious blend of form and function. He left his career as a graphic artist to begin designing furniture in 2014, going all-in with the industry in 2018.
Three years later, the industry is taking notice. Just weeks before the Fall Market, Kamiya was among 12 winners in the International Society of Furniture Designers second annual home furnishings design competition. His Penbox Knockdown Desk was recognized as best in the Professional Occasional Storage category.
Beyond building furnishings one at a time in his garage, what makes Kamiya’s creations different? He uses no screws, no nails and no stains. He does it the hard way, assembling with glue and precision joinery, finishing with plant-based oil and an acid-free wax used by the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“It is the hard way,” Kamiya said. “I want to make special pieces. How often do you go into a house and there's one piece of furniture that you know took time and effort to make. You don't see that very often.”
And while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, Kamiya’s method helps ensure his designs remain unique. “Furniture doesn't really have a copyright, so if you, if I design something someone won’t make a knock-off design because if it’s difficult to reproduce, they probably won't bother,” he said.
A native of Durham, he and his wife, Irene, were importers of furniture from her native country of Bali. Kamiya said he grew tired of being asked if he made the pieces, so he decided to put his graphic arts talent to work on furniture design. The family moved to High Point in 2019.
“My pieces are art,” Kamiya said. “When it comes to furniture, there are obviously some limitations. There are certain inherent boundaries, and I guess they could be a challenge, but that's the fun part. Not everyone has got that passion or motivation to really focus on design and create something special as opposed to trying to hit a price point. or value engineer a product.
“When the money gets involved, you’re making sacrifices on the creative output. I think that if I were one of the bigger players in the furniture industry I would pay attention to what the smaller players are doing because those are not doing it just for money. They're doing it because they love it.”
Kamiya specializes in occasional pieces and larger-scale items such as armoires. His sweet spot is larger pieces that can cost upwards of $10,000 each, with the goal of averaging one per month in addition to smaller pieces. Clients are interior decorators who bring projects to him, each new piece added to the designs inventory on his website, from which professionals and consumers can shop.
With no permanent showroom, Kamiya exhibits during Market with a group of exhibitors called Mill Collective. Otherwise, a room in his home serves as his showroom.
Kamiya is in no hurry to become a volume manufacturer. The nature of his work doesn’t allow for assembly line production. He is open to overtures for small-batch manufacturing, should any come along.
“That's definitely a way for me to scale and make more profits, but for now I'm really focusing on enjoying the design process and the building process, still honing my skills and trying to be as creative as possible,” Kamiya said. “At the end of the day, even if I don't sign a licensing deal, at the end of my life there will be a lot of designs out there.”
