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says, "and I’m not afraid to try things I haven’t done before."
Ipekjian has spent so much time working with original
pieces and drawings that he has become adept at interpret-
ing the original drawings of Charles Greene. Pointing to one
drawing he remarks, "That’s his representation of a cloud; you
can see it in other pieces."
On the day of my visit, Ipekjian was working on a custom
table that had been drawn by Greene, but never constructed.
Working from a copy of an original sketch, he was carving
details in the legs. "I’m not very good at predicting how long
it will take to do something. For this table, I fi gured the four
legs would take a day, but it’s taking me a day to do each one.
This isn’t production work; each piece is a little different," he
explains.
When the Blacker house was built, there was a music cabi-
net in the living room that the current owners wanted repro-
duced. Original drawings existed, but didn’t show the details
of the exteriors of the upper doors – and the whereabouts of
the original was unknown. Ipekjian made his best guess, and
constructed the piece. "Unfortunately," he says matter-of-
factly, "a photo of the original surfaced shortly after I had this
completed, and my guess was wrong. So I get to make a new
pair of doors."
Getting the details exactly right has been a key element
to his success, and the original pieces contained an incred-
ible amount of intricate details that aren’t readily apparent.
"There’s a subtlety to this furniture that you really can’t get
unless you’ve seen a lot of it up close," Ipekjian says.
His curiosity goes well beyond solving technical problems.
Discussing the mechanism of a drop-front desk, Ipekjian ques-
tions where the details came from: "Did the customer ask for
this, or even notice it? It could have come from the guy who
made it, or Henry (Greene) may have had it all drawn out."
Ipekjian can’t keep from talking about the details – how
something is put together, what lies behind the detail, and
what that detail does for the entire piece. He likely knows
Accurate reproductions in a corner of the shop near the entrance serve as Ipekjian’s showroom.1 148-153_Greene&GreeneStyle.indd 152 48 - 153 _Greene&GreeneStyle.indd 152 3 3/25/13 9:55 AM/ 25 / 13 9 : 55 AM