BRANDON — Bryan Smyda was perfecting the creation of a gun rack in his seventh-grade shop class when he knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It came so naturally to him that, in fact, his teacher asked him where in the world he learned such smooth woodworking skills.
Crafting and working with his hands runs in the family — his father was a renowned photographer; his grandfather, a master furniture-maker and builder.
“I got into shop class, and that light bulb just lit up for me,” said Smyda, 54. “When that class was over I was kind of heartbroken. It was one of the first classes I had been in besides an art class where I really thought, ‘Man, this is fun.’ I wasn’t crazy about learning English. I wasn’t crazy about learning math. I needed the hands-on learning.”
Once he entered high school, Smyda couldn’t wait to delve deeper into the world of woodworking. Unfortunately, none of the shop classes he took came close to the magical “light bulb” experience he’d had in junior high.
“My 10th-grade year, the teacher just told us to read the textbook. We never even picked up a tool the whole semester, so I dropped it and took art instead,” he said.
“In 11th grade, we moved to Brantley, Ala., and there still wasn’t much of a shop class. They had the shop but no one but the agriculture teacher to teach it.”
Restless that he hadn’t enhanced his skills and not ready to forgo his passion, Smyda spent the summer using his grandfather’s old tools to build tables and other odds and ends for his grandmother.
After graduating from high school in 1980, Smyda attended Douglas MacArthur State Technical College in Opp, Ala. He enrolled in the architectural drafting and design program. While he appreciated the knowledge he was gaining, a little voice in his head nagged him to take a different path.
“I just knew I wanted to go do something with my hands. I didn’t want to spend my life behind a drawing board,” he said. “So I decided to go into the building trade. I started off as labor on a crew right out of school and worked my way up to a foreman and then a superintendent. I worked there until 1988 when I got an offer to go into business with a friend as a silent partner in a construction company.”
Three years in, the U.S. declared war on Saudi Arabia, causing an economic slump and forcing Smyda out of business in Montgomery, Ala. He didn’t stay down for long, soon going to work for Morton Buildings in sales and project management.
“I was great at the management aspect, but I just never sold anything,” he said. “That was a huge learning curve. You’re living on a tiny salary and hoping for commission. I was broke but stuck it out as long as I could go. I finally got better at selling, but it took some time.”
His determination paid off, and the company soon offered Smyda a territory in Mississippi a few months later.
“They wanted me to choose where to open the business in Mississippi. At that point — 1991-1992 — the building boom was just cranking up, and the Jackson area was the best place to be. We found office space to rent in Pearl. I worked night and day and really got a great clientele established,” he said.
By 1998, Smyda was feeling worn down and started to lose interest in the executive level of the construction industry. He left Morton Buildings, built his own house on 20 acres in Johns, Miss., a community just south of Brandon, and worked remodeling jobs here and there to pay the bills.
One night while watching HGTV’s “Modern Masters” with his wife, Laurie, Smyda had another “light bulb” moment. It was similar to the one in junior high school. The show featured three masters in a field of crafting.
“That night changed everything for me. I saw this guy from Pennsylvania. He had a woodshop similar to what I built behind my house, and he was building this beautiful furniture. I don’t know what it was about it, but I looked at my wife and said, ‘That’s what I want to do with my life.’ I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. My brain was working in overdrive.”
The next day, after finishing a job in Madison, Smyda packed up his tools, moved them to the woodshop in his backyard and starting setting up his new business, Smyda Woodworking.
“A friend had told me about this guy named Sam Maloof. He said if I was going to do woodworking, I really needed to follow this guy and do it right, so my wife went out and bought me this book about him. He is known for his rocking chairs, and she said, ‘Buy you some wood and build one.’ Talk about intimidating,” Smyda said.
“I bought the wood, and it sat around for about four months before I finally tackled that rocking chair. It took me 200 hours to build it, but when I finished it, it was such a huge feeling of accomplishment. I put it in the back of my truck and drove around Jackson to decorators, architects, anybody who would look at it,” he said.
Smyda found a fan in Lisa Palmer of SummerHouse Interior Design.
“She took one look at it and said, ‘If you can do this, we need to talk.’ She started feeding me projects, and I started doing a little work here and there, buying more tools, and going to Sam’s conferences to learn more about his style,” he said. “I was amazed. If you just let people know what they can do, then they turn around and do it.”
Smyda said his father told him that he would never be happy in the two-dimensional world of pen and paper.
“He said, ‘You’re going to have to go three-dimensional with your stuff. I can just see it. I can tell. You’re just like your grandpa.’ And then I understood what he meant later on. I don’t mind drawing it, but I have to make it,” he said.
Smyda is a master craftsman in every sense of the word. His work ranges from antique-inspired and traditional to sleek and contemporary, but every piece is one of a kind. Smyda prides himself on crafting each piece to work with the client’s personality and style.
His work has been featured in regional and national magazines, as well as a book by HGTV designer and Jackson local Laurie Smith, and is even slated to be included in an upcoming issue of Architectural Digest.
Through it all, Smyda stays grounded by focusing on his love of the craft.
“This business has been one big growth spurt after another where I have to learn to grow with it and try to catch up with it along the way, but I finally feel like I’m at a point where things are running smoothly,” he said.
With most of the pieces he builds, Smyda has a vision for the finished product before he sees the path to get there. Somehow, he knows it will all come together.
“That’s the fun of it, especially with the really challenging pieces. I never worry about it. Each piece is its own work of art,” he said.
STORY Elizabeth Grey
PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis
