March 04--SANTA FE -- As Leonel Capparelli looks over a badly charred wooden gate on Monday near the ruins of his Santa Fe workshop destroyed by fire last month, he's sees art.
And the way Capparelli has it planned, his business will be something like the mythical Phoenix, literally rising from the ashes.
The renowned Spanish Colonial and New Mexican furniture maker believes the fire at his Hands of America workshop is an opportunity for rebirth both for himself and his business, which has been in Santa Fe since 1986.
The handmade burned gate had been finished and ready to deliver to a client when the fire broke out at the workshop on Rodeo Road about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 20. Now he wants to take the charred gate and other burned pieces and use them in his craft.
"The burned gate is like a piece of art," said Capparelli. "I am going to make a line of furniture from some of this burned wood -- it's a milestone in my life."
That burned wood includes a 300-year-old beam from a cathedral in Puebla, Mexico, massive and rare three-foot by eight-foot mesquite slabs, and more.
"You don't find wood like this anymore," he said of the mesquite. The beams, "they are just half-burned" and can "definitely" be saved.
"All bad things are not totally bad.There is a rebirth happening here, I want it to be that way," he said with a laugh.
Monday was the first day of month-long sale Capparelli is having in a make-shift tent showroom, as he clears room in the original showroom, saved from fire, to have a place to establish a new workshop.
Workers were busy carrying furniture, as Capparelli's wife Elena and her sister Gina affixed price tags to dozens of works of art outside.
The Uruguayan immigrant, who came to Santa Fe with his brother, said he has been buoyed by local support since the fire. "The community has been incredibly behind us, hundreds of phone calls , emails and texts," said Capparelli.
"It's a family feeling. My clients tell me I have been doing such a beautiful thing for so long, they feel for us," he said. About 40 clients, both new and previous fans of his art, came by in about four hours on Monday.
"People found out about us because of the (news) articles on the fire" and from newspaper ads publicizing the sale, he said.
Capparelli's work can be found in various Santa Fe hotels including the St. Francis Hotel, Hotel Loretto, and the Inn of the Anasazi.
Capparelli also praised the work of Santa Fe firefighters, as he pointed out melted insulation on an outside showroom wall and charred trees to show how they were able to stop the fire from igniting his showroom, mere feet from the workshop rubble.
Insurance will cover part of his loss. "But the stuff the insurance is not going to cover is about $200,000 ... I lost every single tool, all my designs, my templates for 30 years," he said. The insurance company, "they don't know the value of a big piece of wood."
Fire investigators are still working to determine the cause of the blaze, Santa Fe Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Jan Snyder said Monday.
Copyright 2014 - Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
