Furniture maker, woodworker, and sculptor, Todd McCollister, talks about his work engaging at the boundary between furniture design and sculptural art. McCollister shares his journey into this passion and business, the questions he explores in his pieces, and how he engages with the natural material. Not only do we chat in the recording studio, but spend some time with McCollister in his wood shop at Omaha’s old Quartermaster Depot.

Todd McCollister builds in the zone between Furniture Design and Art, bringing important elements of each into any given object. At times the boundary between the two fields gets thin or hazy. McCollister earned a BFA in Sculpture and Photography in 1996 from Texas Christian University and an MFA in Sculpture in 2000 from Stony Brook University. He then moved to New York City, first pursuing Sculpture and shifting to Furniture in 2006. In 2014 he brought what he learned back to his hometown of Omaha, NE, and founded Long Grain Furniture. An active member of the informal Omaha art community, McCollister currently runs a monthly event series called “Final Fridays at Todd’s,” aimed at bringing the Omaha art community together.