Meet Martin Pierce of Mid City
Today we’d like to introduce you to Martin Pierce. So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story. I have always been more interested in birds and bugs than books and so these were the pieces I began carving in my school’s woodworking class. I left school at 16 and my Dad helped me find a position as an apprentice wood carver. In my apprenticeship, I learned to carve quickly and decisively but found that I got bored with repetitive work and so began my own business carving sculptures for sale and supplementing my work with private commissions for church lecterns. My wife and I are both from Worcester, England but left in 1980 after Maggie Thatcher was elected as we felt the prospects were bleak and both of us felt stifled by the class system that prevailed and with how it limited our prospects. We arrived in Los Angeles partly by accident and partly by design, the cheap flights did play a part but we came with a bundle of wood carving chisels, a lengthy visa and as much cash as the sale of our car gave us. Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome? Having an English accent was an advantage and we happily accepted the positive discrimination that it bestowed. Our talent, modest funds and the willingness of people to
accept us allowed me to set up my work bench and begin sculpting within a month of arriving. Our journey has been up and down some years good, some not so good such as the 1990’s building recession years that hit the local construction industry hard and made us change course. At that point, we were carving custom molding and doors for residences in Bel Air and Beverly Hills and were known for our ability to design and carve in the Art Nouveau style. When the recession hit new building ground to a halt and so we hunkered down and decided to use the down time to return to basics and began our Hedgerow line of furniture. Later, after many years of working with heavy hard woods, my body and mind needed a new direction and I began to grow my small collection of cabinet pulls into a complete collection of door hardware. The recent recession was a case of hitting the replay button from the 90’s, being frugal but comforted by knowing that we could adapt again if needed and re-invent ourselves a third time. Martin Pierce – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition? We design and make unusual door handles, cabinet pulls and door accessories for both commercial projects and residences. Our work is made to order; rather high end and we have a small studio where we are available by appointment to show our collections. Our work is extremely detailed and cast in either solid bronze or stainless steel using the lost wax method of casting. This method is extremely labor intensive and time consuming as each piece is made in wax, then coated with clay slurry before being baked hard to form a shell from which the wax is melted or “lost” and into which the molten bronze or steel is poured. We are known for our wide variety of unique handles, we are the antithesis of the generic door handle. At present, we have 6 collections – Ergo and Morphic our contemporary lines are cast in stainless steel with our more transitional styles – Hedgerow, Netsuke, Lizard, Grapevine being cast in bronze. As a sculptor and designer I approach the door hardware market from an artistic rather than commercial perspective. Once I have a fully fleshed out design and if my wife Anne gives her editorial approval then we focus on turning the design into a functioning handle. From that point, I begin to create the pattern which will be used to create the mold. The pattern can take days, weeks or even months to complete. I am presently carving a new tree handle that will be illuminated and which I hope will be completed by the end of the year. I could have taken an easier path and made a one directional handle but this goes against my artistic sensibility, this is what I mean by being more focused on the artistic and not commercial nature of door hardware. We like working with designers and coming up with designs for new projects. We are currently working on some large 6’ door handles for a new development in Houston and the creative interaction has been great. We are a very small company and totally hands on and deliver timeless heirlooms and most important enjoy what we do.
We are now integrating LED lights into our door handles as well as developing wall lights and sconces using the same technology. Creating these new designs has been both challenging and gratifying. These new pieces are hard wired not battery operated so the even though the LED light will last 3+ years we had to design the fixture so that LED component could be easily replaced by the owner. The products have now gone through UL testing and we are just starting our first production pieces. Our other new direction is taking our more iconic bronze handles and casting them in steel as the current design trend is towards these cooler tones. What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on? When a designer has commissioned a whole project using our furniture and our door hardware designs. We are big fans of Art Nouveau and envy the holistic perspective that dominated that era, so when I get an opportunity to design a complete project I am ecstatic. This has happened a couple of times in the last decade most recently through a commission by Tracy Abrams Design.