In our second Notes from the Studio feature to highlight the prizewinning artists in Breaking Ground: WEM’s 32nd Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition, we are delighted to share out conversation with Haniel Wides. Haniel’s piece Creep was awarded second place by this year’s jurors and has been piquing the curiosity of viewers at WEM all summer long. The prizewinning works are on view in our Visitor Center through September 20, 2026, with the complete show available as a virtual exhibition and accompanying publication. Read on to learn more about Haniel’s studio practice and approach to woodworking.
Can you tell us a little about Creep, your piece in the Breaking Ground exhibition? How were you thinking about the exhibition theme while making this work or selecting which work to submit for the exhibition? What appealed to you about the exhibition theme?
To me the theme Breaking Ground sounded like WEM was searching for something new, which is what I was doing when I came up with Creep. I didn’t want it to look like anything I’d ever made, or anyone else had made. The contrarian in me is really tired of seeing the same chairs, over and over again. Creep was a product of curiosity, exploration, experimentation, and getting a little freaky. I don’t see my piece as particularly revolutionary, but it’s definitely out of the ordinary and figured that would be enough to fit the bill.
This exhibition explores the idea that “breaking ground” can sometimes be less about big achievements and more about simply beginning. Have there been moments in your practice where starting something new felt especially important or transformative?
Starting something always feels transformative. I’m always kind of scared to begin a project, like how the heck am I going to make this thing?? Do I even know how to do woodworking?? (Yes, I’ve been doing it for half my life.) What if I fail? Even if I think I have a good sense of what to do, change is scary, starting is scary. Breaking ground also implies that your foundation is destabilized. Every time I build something, I have to push past fear and tell myself I can do it. And even just getting to that point feels good.
Breaking Ground asks what happens after the initial “groundbreaking” moment — after the first idea, risk, or shift takes place. What has growth or evolution looked like in your practice recently? Have there been particular tools, techniques, materials, mentors, or experiences that opened up new directions in your work?
For the last two years, I intentionally tried to make the most perfect, beautiful objects I possibly could, just to see if I could. This time, I actually set out to make something ugly, off-putting, that would only appeal to, like, queer weirdos. Nothing satisfied me more than hearing straight people look at this chair and politely say, “Oh…how….interesting…,” while all the freaks told me how happy it made them.
I started building the chair at Haystack. Charlie Ryland gave me a ton of advice, and loaned me all the chair making tools so that I could build this piece. I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was a humbling two weeks of people asking when I was going to have a chair already. And then I finished it at my shop. I want to make more ugly, gestural things for people in my communities, these pieces are strange but they have a really specific use, and facilitate intimacy and expression in the wildest, strangest ways. I want to develop a specifically queer aesthetic to my work.
Wharton Esherick continually pushed his work in new directions across disciplines and materials. What is a moment in your own practice where you felt pulled beyond familiar territory? What did you learn from pursuing it?
This piece was that. I had never made a windsor chair from start to finish before. I had made parts for them, working briefly for George Sawyer (whose work is also included in Breaking Ground), and that was my introduction to Windsor chair building. What I learned is, it really paid off to come at this like, “this might not work at all and could suck, but even that is better than not trying at all.” Also the mindset of, at the end of the day, it’s just wood. Nobody’s life is on the line here, let’s just go for it. That takes the pressure off each time.
Fundraiser for immigrants in ICE detention.
What helps you stay curious, experimental, or open to new ideas in your work?
My wife arguing with me about my ideas, my friends, my communities–artists, activists, people in night life, kinksters, poets, also topically, peoples’ history, sci-fi authors, comics, really anything but woodworking if I’m being honest. Seeing really cool woodworking makes me want to go into the shop, but my best ideas happen away from wood craft.
What draws you to wood as a material for creative work? What does it offer as a medium that continues to surprise, challenge, or engage you?
Wood just feels second nature to me. It always did. I’m drawn to the idea that that, kind of like leather, you’re dealing with dead creatures, and so woodworking is really elemental like that. I feel like Frankenstein, piecing together these corpses and making some new being. The challenges to me are mostly ethical. Like what it means to be part of a market that murders creatures that clean our air, cool our communities, shelter critters, and protect our ozone. So how can I pay respect to trees and use as little waste as possible?
What feels genuinely groundbreaking to you right now? This could be in your own practice, in the bigger contemporary art and design world, or in the broader cultural moment?
I mostly like things that queer and Trans people make. I don’t look at the contemporary design world, it kind of bores me. There’s a lot of exciting stuff happening in spaces and platforms that are well outside of the mainstream.
I’m inspired by other makers in my community, including Kainoa Gruspe, Xray Aims, Petra Szilagyi, Mr. R, Nicholas Galanin, Robell Awake, Mistress Iris, Mistress Sunmi, Alyx Tanner, Kondo Heller, Nayeli Mzin, and many, many others.
Is there a particular part of Wharton Esherick’s work that you admire, or which has influenced how you think about your own work? If you’ve had the chance to visit the studio, what has been your favorite part about your experience?
I got to visit the studio when I dropped off my piece! It was around sunset, so serene, and I got to see the spaces practically empty, which was such a treat. I love that it’s kind of chaotic, but peaceful at the same time. I really enjoy that about his aesthetic, I guess some would call it whimsical. His pieces always look so dynamic, like they’re in motion, and I definitely take inspiration from that, I want my work to look alive.
We are excited to continue to follow along with you and your studio practice. What are you most excited about in your woodshop right now and/or on the horizon?
I’m most excited and proud of a show I put on in March 2026, Designed for Deviance. It was a collaborative exhibition featuring queer and trans artists, activists, organizers, and performers working in the medium of dance, music, piercing, power exchange, rope bondage, woodcraft, poetry, and more. Together, we created scenes and performances using furniture that I built to highlight different aspects of queer identity, sexuality, and aesthetics.
Explore more of Haniel Wides furniture and installation work on their website.
View other artworks in the Breaking Ground exhibition.
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Haniel Wides is an artist, furniture maker, fabricator, and educator who blends furniture and sculpture in an exploration of craft history, ecology, and societal notions of beauty. Their approach to woodcraft is through a socially and historically conscious lens, fusing both contemporary and ancient aesthetics and philosophies, and primarily utilizes techniques of pre-industrial furniture making. Wides has extensive work history and formal training in both historic and modern carpentry, furniture making, repair and restoration, and uses a wide variety of chairmaking and cabinetry techniques including green woodworking, post-and-rung construction, staked furniture construction, carving, steambending, and pre-modern joinery. They incorporate a wide range of philosophical and cultural influences of their lived experience into their methodology, including labor history, Anarchism, Queer theory, Jewish mysticism, Balkan mythology, leather culture, and pop culture, to approach woodcraft with a socially and historically conscious lens.
July 2026