Artist & Woodworker Ted Frumkin & Family

George Nakashima Style Walnut bench

Hello,

My Name is Ted Frumkin,

Welcome to Around the Bend Woodworks.

With Special attention to wood grain, exterior log shape and contrasting natural colors I create Heirloom Quality furniture & art that affords, comfort, Style, strength & Beauty. Here Around the Bend I take pride in every piece of unique, handcrafted Furniture & Art I create. 

I specialize in Unique Hardwood Slab Benches, Wood Slab Tables, Wood Slab Mantles, One Piece Barstools - Milk Stools - Footstools, Batwing Bar / Cafe Doors, Hand Carved Crosses, Guitar Hanger Shelves, & My Original Music,& Uncle Ted's Original BB-Q Rub.    

A review written by Doug Varner of www.mindsight.tv for Small Town Life Magazine

What does it take to be an artist? What does it take to see what you are making before it is done?  What does it take to believe in what you aredoing, regardless of what others might say?

It takes a confidence that supercedes the obvious and overcomes the obstacles…
Meet Ted Frumkin…Wood smokin’, guitar playin’, song writin’, chainsaw carvin’ man.  Where can you find him…?  Look up www.around-the-bend.com or at www.tedfrumkin.com but that’s where you’ll find the virtual Ted.  If you want to catch up in person…you can find him many days at his new workshop in Shelocta, Pa.  

Some 7 years ago or so, a now passed friend, Dick Bungo, brought up some stools carved out of tree parts with a chainsaw.  That inspired Ted to pick up his saw and to get after a dormant passion… Carving and shaping wood into what he could see in his mind (key to being an artist.)  He made a few stools and then was over visiting me one day as I wanted to cut a tree down that needed cut.   He looked up the tree and spied a curve in the middle of the tree about 20’ off of the ground and asked me if he could make a bench from the tree. From that thought came the first bench, cut with a chainsaw, affectionately known as “the swerve.”   It was (and is) too cool.  Once the tree was down, he eyed up the perfect 12’long section, with the curve in the middle and cut it out.  Then he cut where the tree hit a “Y” and cut the “Y” in half (to make the ends of the bench.)  Next he turned the 10’ piece on it’s side and began to cut slabs, one for the bench seat, one to cut again perpendicularly into strips that would become the perfectly shaped back.    The bench has seen many bottoms and been a comfort to many…you can sit on it at the pavilion in Luckenbach, Penna.
What you need next…to continue as an artist…is at least one person who understands what it’s like to be an artist, who will encourage you…many artists come with  unique idiosyncrasies…and special needs.  Ted is no different.  He has persevered through the last 7 years to build an online business as well to trade locally working in his yard, on the outside porch and even the living room of his home with no shop and a few tools.
Then the unexpected happened as He and his wife, Jennifer, and their three children were burnt out of their home last December, where he lost (they lost) everything they had, including products he had built and slabs that weren’t yet made into their final creation.  God was watching out for his family…there were no injuries!
Through the willingness of people to help, some insurance proceeds and a lot of things working out well, Ted has been able to keep his business going and to rebuild it in an even better way.  After the fire, the family moved temporarily to a home on Cunningham Road in Armstrong Township. They found an idea place, in Shelocta, Pa, to keep his dream alive and that is where they are living and working as a family now.
Ted crafts the pieces of art, his wife Jennifer takes the pictures for the website, son Mason Frumkin debarks, while daughter Wiley sweeps up the sawdust and his son Sam…plays in it!  Together the around-the-bend woodworks family, literally turns out “a one of a kind,” every time.   
Every artist is inspired by someone…in Ted’s case, the inspiration comes from George Nakashima, born in 1905 in Spokane, WA.  Who became internationally famous for his turning dead trees into commissioned works of art.  After spending time in a Japanese Internment camp in the early 1940’s, he eventually relocated in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the mid 1940’s, where his daughter continues with the Nakashima theme of making beautiful works of art and operating a museum in Georges memory.
Now comes Mr. Ted Frumkin, another artist, who started his life somewhere else, (Center Point, Texas,) and ended up in the Western Pennsylvania Hill Country, first in the town of Glen Campbell, PA and now in the town of Shelocta, Pa.    Ted creates much out of thin air and thick wood, and by request, more specific products designed to meet the client’s specifications.  
While many people go after a regular or as some say “real job,” we are the fortunate beneficiaries of what one man can do, when opportunity, desire and resources show up together.Who knows, someday people will say….oh that’s a frumkin original, I’d recognize that work anywhere.  Ted is an encouragement in his perseverance toward following the gifts and talent’s he has been given and an inspiration to others who have a chance to do something different than the norm in this life.  He has quite a good wit about him, and his humor is priceless.  Beyond his wood working skills…he is an accomplished song writer and performer, along with his wife.  He also has a knack for using a wood smoker to cook and has created his on dry rub barbecue seasoning called Uncle Ted’s Party Rub.
If you looking for something different for your family room, your garden, and frankly for use anywhere…these pieces are the talk.  Come see and you’ll “see” what Ted is all about.  Take a minute to check out the website: www.tedfrumkin.com  where you’ll find the music, the rub, and the wood…they way only an artist named Ted Frumkin can do it.

  In a way its Found Art because I cut no live trees!

CUSTOM ORDERS WELCOME