Eben Blaney came by working with wood, and his hands, naturally. At least it might appear that way if you weren't aware that he resisted going that route for most of his formative years.

Blaney, a fine contemporary furniture maker, grew up in Boothbay Harbor, where his father, Roy Blaney, was a wooden boatbuilder who built over two dozen sailboats in his shop in the harbor. The last boat he built, in 1983, was a 40-foot ketch that Blaney, then in high school, and his parents, lived on for a year.

Blaney's workshop is on Eddy Road in Edgecomb. He built it on the property he bought with his partner, Julie Hofheimer. The workshop has a large open space for his studio, and a living space below that looks out to a cute little cottage Hofheimer uses for her massage therapy business.

Above the work space is another space, with a high ceiling. That space is being transformed into a showroom, which will open on one end to the workshop below.

Blaney said he resisted working with wood for much of his younger years, because, well, his father did it. “I didn't want to be defined by what my father did. And if you're self employed, it becomes your life.”

The designer/craftsman said he fancied himself a writer and a musician at different times over the years, and he began working in custom wood shops over 30 years ago. He attended the University of Southern Maine and schools in New York and Seattle, and supported himself by working in cabinet shops on both coasts.

In the late ’90s, Blaney came back to attend graduate school in Portland. He got a job in a woodworking shop on Commercial Street, to pay the bills, and the owner of the shop was doing something similar to what Blaney is doing now.

“It was a perfect situation. There were no plans, we just had to dream things up. And I realized it wasn't only fun — I was decent at it. About a year into it, I realized I couldn't work for him anymore.”

He started his own business in Portland — Eben Blaney Fine Furniture — and in 2002, designed and built the shop in Edgecomb.

Blaney said much of the inspiration for his work was studio furniture, popular in the ’70s. “I've always been very artistic, but by never taking any design courses, I never got introduced to studio furniture, which is close to what I'm doing now. It was a movement that concentrated on making pieces that were very individual. They were more than just functional items. I never knew three-dimensional stuff could be so exciting.”

Blaney continues to design and create pieces that express his constantly evolving artistic vision, influenced by Japanese, Shaker and mid-century Scandinavian designs, as well as the craftsmen and designers he has worked with over the years, and the shapes and structures of the wooden boats he watched being built as a youth.

“My recent designs have emerged from years of custom furniture building, as well as from my continual experimentation with forms, combinations of shapes and colors,” he said.

Everywhere you look in Blaney's studio, there are boards and pieces of the wood, mostly the hardwoods like walnut, mahogany, maple, white oak and blackwood, that he uses for his creations. “I design my furniture to be relatively spare, yet elegant and useful, carefully selecting and using the most beautiful hardwoods available. I like clean, modern lines and employ a 'less is more' approach.”

Blaney’s work is represented by galleries in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. This past winter it was featured in a show at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship’s  (CFC) Messler Gallery in Rockport, along with several wood/furniture artists from across the country who, like Blaney, have been accepted to, and shown their work at, the Smithsonian Craft Show, an annual event in Washington, D.C.

In addition to high-end, juried craft/design shows, several of Blaney's pieces can be seen at the Society of Arts and Crafts new showroom in the Seaport District in Boston. He was recently invited to show his work at the Turtle Gallery in Deere Isle this coming summer. Some of his designs are also featured on the online company website, Artful Home.

Blaney has taught at the CFC,  where he was awarded “Best New Maker” in the school’s Maine Wood 2012 Biannual exhibition and competition. In the spring of 2013, Blaney’s bench, “Parenthetical,” was chosen by the Farnsworth Museum as one of two new designs purchased by the museum in the “Designing Benches” show and competition, also held at Messler Gallery. Blaney’s piece, “Cirrus2,” received “best in furniture” in the CFC’s Maine Wood 2014 exhibition and his “Cormorant table” was awarded for “best in furniture” and “outstanding craftsmanship” recently at the Maine Wood 2016 exhibition.

More about Blaney and his fine furniture can be seen at www.ebenblaney.com, and his Facebook and Instagram pages. Blaney plans to have his showroom open by summer.