They say if you love what you do, work is like play. For Brian Skalaski, “playing” with steam-bending wood experiments led to a winning entry in the prestigious Young Wood Pro contest.

This is the 10th year of the contest, which is sponsored by Grizzy Industrial and also involves an ongoing education program to help young woodworking professionals grow in their businesses and professional lives. 

 

Attracting more than 100 entries in 2025, the contest was more competitive than ever, but the winning piece. Swell Tambour Cabinet, by Skalaski quickly rose to the top of the judges’ ballots to take first prize.

The piece is a liquor cabinet made from walnut and ash, but its most distinctive feature is a pair of tambour doors in which the tambours themselves artfully bow out to form elegant handles.

But the stunning craftsmanship does not end on the outside. Brass hardware and interior LED lighting offer an artful bonus on the inside.

Matt Buell, the host of the Young Wood Pro program and one of the judges, was moved by Skalaski’s winning entry. “The level of craftsmanship, design, and presentation was beyond my expectations,” said Buell, who is a well-known custom furniture maker and designer. “I cannot express enough how impressive his entry was. He has raised the bar for all future entries.”

 

Commissioned piece
Skalaski, who is 31 and operates Jug End Studio in Philadelphia, said his winning entry came about as a commission from a longtime patron. He had done work for the customer 10 years ago and had made liquor cabinets for his sons. Skalaski said even the wood for this project came from the patron’s property.

The distinctive swelled tambour handles on the piece grew out of Skalaski’s ongoing experiments with steam-bending wood. He said the swell is created by “squishes.”

 

“You squish one end more than the other,” he explained. “It’s a trial-and-error process. It’s a kind of call-and-response thing. I like to work with its natural properties. It’s kind of like alchemy.”

Or playful experimenting. Skalaski says he likes to take offcuts from his shop and explore steam-bending them into different shapes. “Most of my work is inspired by little experiments I do,” he said. “The pull for this cabinet was hanging on the wall for years. I was pushing for something that looks kind of like it grew there.”

Not a straight line
Skalaski says he often strives for a more natural and organic look to his work. “It’s an allegory to my life,” he said. “I didn’t exactly take a straight line to get here.”

His father was a mechanical engineer, and Skalaski says his interest in woodworking began in his father’s shop. “I was down there since 6 or 8 years old,” he said. At 13, he started making skateboards. At 16, he started working summers in the shop of Daniel Minzner.
 

His formal training includes studying in the well-known woodworking program at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. From there, he went on to earn a bachelor's degree in furniture design at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, where he met his fiancée, who is also a woodworker.

Along the way, he spent some significant time apprenticing with experienced professional woodworkers, including cabinetmaker Brian Boland and studio furniture artist Hank Gilpin. He has worked with designers, done furniture restoration and historic millwork projects, including the Beth Shalom Synagogue. He did architectural millwork restoration in a Frank Lloyd Wright house that had plywood dating to the 1940s. “It’s very different than our plywood,” he said.

Busy shop
Today, Skalaski says his shop has a full slate of projects that include a mix of cabinetry, architectural millwork, and custom furniture work. 

He shares the shop space with his fiancée, who is a woodworking educator at Bucks County Community College, but she is currently working in a teaching position in Oregon in the Forestry Department at Oregon State University.

Their 2,300-square-foot shop is full of conventional woodworking machinery, including an 18-inch bandsaw, shapers, and a panel saw. Skalaski says he will probably use the prizes from the Young Wood Pro Contest ($500 from Woodworking Network, and a $2,000 shopping spree from Grizzly Industrial) to add better dust collection to the shop.

Confessing that time management is a challenge, Skalaski said the shop is “busy as all heck. It’s Interesting getting used to timelines. You kind of just jump on things when you can.”

 

Inspirations, influences
Skalaski is not ready to pigeon-hole himself in any one style or kind of woodworking.

“I don’t know that there is any one thing I prefer over others,” he said. “Everything is a new challenge. Sometimes the constraints are what make it more fun. Sometimes the challenges are what make the piece.”

He said the material itself, the wood, inspires him, and he continues to constantly experiment to see what he can do with wood. He does not have set goals for his business and looks for the wood and the work to take him where they will.

“I just want to be able to do it as long as I can,” he said. “Every day is a new challenge. When you don’t have goals, you listen a little more to what the world tells you.”

He points to something one of his teachers, Mark Sfirri at Bucks County Community College, told him: “You’re building a wall. You don’t know left or right. Focus on the wall.”

He points to other mentors and influences, including Dan Minzner, who gave him his shop start, and Hank Gilpin, who taught him, “You should enjoy this every day.” He said Brian Boland taught him business skills, and Frank Jones introduced him to traditional finishing techniques.

For more information about the Young Wood Pro program and contest, visit woodworkingnetwork.com/ywp.