Going Where the Wood Takes Him

Everything about Mark Supik’s business is unique.

From the products to the process and tools, from his niche in Baltimore to the way he feels about his everyday job, from the staff to the clients, everything about Supik’s woodturning company makes it one of a kind.

“It is fun to be able to do something like this and to live close to where you work and to be with people that you like to be with,” says Supik, a modest, self-proclaimed big fish in a very small pond. “I don’t worry too much about a lot of things that self-employed people worry about, so I’m very fortunate.”

That’s because Supik has spent his professional career turning his passion for woodturning into a living.

A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art’s sculpture program, Supik established his company in 1981. He opened up the woodworking shop in an industrial building in East Baltimore’s Highlandtown, where it remains to this day.

After several years of general woodworking, Supik decided to focus his efforts in woodturning, something he enjoyed and something that virtually no one else in the area did for a living.

Woodturning with an arsenal of vintage lathes gave Supik the opportunity to offer not only large architectural pieces but also a wide range of products including furniture parts, knitting needles, cooking utensils and even beer tap handles -- something that has become a main component of Supik’s business.

“The guy who owned the Baltimore Brewing Company out on Albemarle Street, the first microbrewery in the city, he came to me back in ‘92 I think it was,” says Supik. “He wanted a tap that was distinctive, and all he could get was a plastic handle, so we took his label and incorporated it into a design and made his handle, and he was the first customer. After that I started going out to other breweries and getting their accounts as well.”

Since then, Supik has become one of the most dominant beer tap handle makers for microbreweries across the country.

“We specialize in making beer taps for startup breweries so when people are just starting out and they don’t need a thousand, they need ten or a hundred, they call us and we’re willing to do those small orders where some of the other companies have minimums or tap handles are made in China,” says Supik’s wife Nancy, who runs the business and logistical end of the company. “We’re very flexible in helping people get started which is also a part of it. We’re always working with companies, and they’re young companies making their first tap handle and their first keg of beer.”

“It’s steady work. The architecture work is like this with the economy,” says Supik, waving his hand up and down to demonstrate. “But the microbrewery phenomenon, I guess you’d call it, didn’t exist 25 years ago. People would just buy the big name beer and now I get calls every day, mostly from young people. They’re excited by this, and they want to do something that’s creative for them. … I have three sons, they don’t buy cheap beer. When I was 25 years old, I just drank any old cheap beer, I wasn’t picky. But these guys will spend five or seven dollars for a glass of beer and then it’s an experience.”

For instance, Supik’s company recently designed a tap for local beer The Raven, brewed in honor of Baltimore’s most famous scribe, Edgar Allan Poe. The tap, featuring Poe’s head, will appear in bars and restaurants serving The Raven, like Annabel Lee Tavern in Canton.

In addition to such a niche market, Supik’s company is unique in that it is nearly 100 percent family owned and operated. Along with Supik and his wife, the staff consists of Supik’s son, niece, nephew and neighbor.

“The kids” have worked at the studio since their high school years, and as they become increasingly indoctrinated into the business side of things, Mark and Nancy Supik say they hope to delegate more of the responsibility to them as they try to carve out more time for the aspects of the business that make them truly happy.

One such aspect is the woodturning school the shop holds on the weekends, a recognition that for many, woodturning can be a satisfying hobby.

“Generally people that make things, they make their own beer [for example], they want to make something else because they like the idea of doing it,” Mark Supik says. “People that make their own sweaters, chances are they’re going to want to make their own tools to make their own sweaters, to spin the yarn. … It all ties in, and it’s not always something you can do for your professional life but it’s fun. We make it fun, we have nice food, and so it’s a relaxing day. And it’s fun for us actually.”

In fact, after setting out to make 100 bowls from a fallen pine tree, Supik began sharing the wood with his students. Now, the collection of Supik’s bowls as well as those created by the amateur turners will be the subject of a show at Highlandtown’s Schiavone Fine Art Gallery November 19 and 20.

The show is part of the art renaissance the Supiks enthusiastically support in different neighborhoods throughout Baltimore.

The bowls give Supik an outlet for his creativity, but he says he also often gets excited about some of the architectural renovations and recreations he is contributing to around Charm City as residents continue to gut, renovate, and restore the city’s old buildings.
“You can’t help but have that rub off on you,” says the Baltimore native. “It’s really neat, really fun. It’s more than just money and more than just a paycheck, so it’s cool when you meet people like that. They’re enthusiastic.”

Still, Supik’s favorite part of his rare business is making something as undeniably unique as the company itself.

“It’s from this tree and you just go where it tells you to go,” he says. “You kind of stop and look, think about this and that and so forth, whereas beer taps need to be exactly the same, stairs need to be exactly the same, you have specs that you have to stick with and it’s pretty nervewracking. But this is just a great feeling. …

“I tell people all the time, I can’t walk past a fallen log without thinking of what kind of bowls are inside that log.”


Staci Wolfson is a Baltimore-born, NYU-educated writer and editor based in Charm City. In addition to BmoreMedia, you can read her writing on Patch.com and her Just for Kicks & Giggles soccer blog.


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Photos by Arianne Teeple