Say Hello to Maine Furniture

Maine Furniture: Peter Turner rocking chair

Maine Furniture
283 Water Street, Suite A, Gardiner, ME(By appointment only)

"Say Hello" is a series of posts on the ArtWalk Gardiner blog where we meet local businesses who support the ArtWalk by providing a venue for artists to display their work and greet the public. In our fifth installment, we talk with Mark McKelvey, owner of Maine Furniture.

Tell us about your business:
Basically we just want Maine woodworkers to show up in search results for terms like Maine Furniture, Shaker Furniture, Colonial Furniture, Mission Furniture, and Contemporary Furniture. The term 'Maine Furniture' is entered into a search on Google 30,000 times/month, and we are now consistently in the top three results on page 1. We have referred nearly $15,000 in work to Maine Furniture makers, and our goal is to keep that figure rising. We are very excited to have our store in centrally-located Gardiner, and we really appreciate all the support we have received from the community. We are currently showing works from ten of Maine's top furniture makers, as well as works from local potters and painters.

How long have you been participating as a venue for ArtWalk Gardiner?
This is our 3rd Art Walk!

What do you enjoy most about being a part of ArtWalk Gardiner?
Everything! It's just great to be a part of a community that supports local artists!

Favorite memory or stand-out moment of an ArtWalk Gardiner event at your business:
When people come into the store they are immediately drawn to the furniture, and I know it's only a matter of minutes or seconds before they reach out and run their hand over the finish of a piece that's caught their attention. It happens to everyone.

Anything else that you'd like to share:
What brought us to this point was community support. We will not ask you for donations (though we're not ruling them out!), but we do ask that you check out our website, and if you like it, refer it to your friends. Please click on all the social media buttons on our homepage! It really, really, makes a big difference!

Say hello!