Doug Ricketts

As far back as Doug Ricketts can remember he has built and put things together, feeling a need to use interesting materials gathered close at hand or on special “wanderings.” Born in Oklahoma and raised in Nevada and New Mexico, he grew up being given free reign to really see the country around him and explore his creative strengths. Later, while earning a BFA in sculpture and ceramics, Ricketts worked as a carpenter and cabinetmaker, not realizing he was heading for a career as a furniture maker. Since 1977 he has lived on the rolling plains of the northeast Texas Panhandle. It is here in this somewhat isolated and sparsely populated place that he has developed his Prairie View style.

Doug Ricketts has always been drawn to the ruins and archetypal structures of the West with their textures and patterns of long use and change. A need for a personal and cultural sense of place has led him to create regionally-inspired furniture—reliquaries of sorts—combining fine domestic woods with castoff ag machinery parts and occasional accent lumber from the ruins. Landscape and weather events, profiles of farm implements and buildings all figure into the designs. Each piece of Prairie View Furniture is a one-of-a-kind sculpture with a story to tell."