Following a twelve year teaching career on the English faculties of the University of Michigan, Stanford and the University of Chicago, Loy Martin has been making one-of-a-kind furniture in his workshop in Palo Alto, California since 1982. Although mostly made on commission, his furniture has been shown in Palo Alto’s Los Robles Gallery, the Highlight Gallery in Mendocino, the Gallery of Fine Woodworking in Sausalito and the Vorpal Gallery in San Francisco as well as the 1991 San Francisco Decorator’s Showcase House and the Furniture Society’s 1999 exhibition, “The Circle Unbroken: Continuity and Innovation in Studio Furniture” which toured a series of museums.
Loy’s furniture has appeared in numerous magazines including Sunset Magazine, American Craft, Home Furniture, Woodwork Magazine, Elle Décor, Northern California Home and Garden and Designers’ Illustrated. His work has also been featured in books such as Taunton Press’ Design Books Four, Six and Eight and Creative Designs in Furniture: 125 of America’s Leading Craft Artists.
For the past several years, Loy has contributed to the dialogue within the community of studio furniture makers. He served on the first editorial board of the Furniture Society’s “Furniture Studio” series of volumes and later served a term on the Furniture Society’s Board of Trustees. In addition, he has chaired numerous panels and seminars on critical discourse at Furniture Society and other craft conferences. He wrote one article, “Embedded Energies,” for Furniture Studio One: The Heart of the Functional Arts and a second, “Decoding Studio Furniture,” for Furniture Studio Two: Tradition in Contemporary Furniture. He also contributed the essay, “A Critical Discourse: Tradition and Continuity,” to Woodwork Magazine in February, 2000.