A R T, A R T I S A N S A N D A N T I Q U E S
Artist Spotlight
ADAM CREMONA CREMONA CUSTOM BUILT
STORY BY HOLLIE DEESE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN RUSHING AND TROY DUNNAGAN
C
onnecticut native Adam Cremona never intended to make furniture, or to live in Nashville. After high school he put college on hold to travel the world, snowboard and make music. “I lived in Thailand for a little bit and just wanted to experience things other than education — a different kind of education,” he says.
“My father is 84 now, but he was an architect in New York and always had projects for us to do around the house — building decks and things like that, swinging a hammer. But I’d never been drawn to furniture,” he says. He started making stuff on the tailgate of his pickup truck, though, and word of mouth began to spread. The couple then moved to Hermitage, and
He went back to college at age 27 for an
he got some woodworking tools to expand his
undergrad degree at Savannah College
operation to fill his two-car garage. After software
of Art and Design in 2003. There, he got
company Force X showcased some of his custom
his BSA in painting and met his wife,
work, demand exploded enough to where he was
Sera. In 2008 they moved to Brooklyn
able to move into a commercial space.
together, where they both worked in Adam Cremona traveled around, snowboarding and making music, before enrolling in SCAD in his late 20s. There he met his wife, Sera. The two eventually moved to Nashville, where his furniture building began to take shape.
was drawn to creating furniture.
galleries while trying to make a living doing art, waiting tables and producing music. They ended up in Nashville because of family,
“I had waited tables for 20-plus years, so I was kind of dead on the inside. I knew that I needed to do something creative,” he says. “This was an opportunity, and I jumped on it — took a leap of
deciding to move
faith, because really
after visiting their
I had nothing else
nephews
to lose. And now
so often.
it’s become a huge
“People were really
passion.”
approachable down
Cremona has
here versus up in
local sources for
New York,” he says.
dimensional lumber
“And even though
and has cultivated
I had connections
relationships all
up there, I was
over the country
making way more
for the live-edge
connections down
material. And if
here. I was just a
live edge is what
hamster in a wheel
a client wants,
up there.”
part of his lead
They moved into
time includes
an apartment on Fatherland Street — right behind Far East where the Hatcheries are now — and it was in Nashville that he 92 | NASHVILLEINTERIORS.COM
the sourcing — sometimes up to five weeks. It’s important to Cremona that he finds the right material, and if the
