For Anthony Buzak, his love affair with wood began some thirty years ago when he built his first project at School No. 60 in Buffalo's Riverside area. It was under the supervision of his shop teacher (Mr. Hammer) when he discovered how much he enjoyed working with wood.

Years later, starting out in life and faced with furnishing his first home, Buzak decided he would save money by making many of the pieces he needed. While owning and operating an electronic service center with 17 employees, he expanded his woodworking skills as time permitted.

In 1988, Buzak made the decision to sell his electronics business to pursue woodworking full-time, first working one year with a custom woodworker and then joining the Dates Weiser Furniture Company in Buffalo, New York. Through this practical experience and the study of design in the literature, Buzak developed the skills and confidence, which allowed him to begin his own custom furniture business in 1990. To his great credit, Buzak was juried into the 1990 ACC Baltimore craft show on his first application. His work has since found its way into a large number of contemporary homes across the country.

A fellow craftsperson says of Buzak's work, "the artist has an elegant sense of line that is at once sleek and clean without losing sight of wood's sensual qualities...delicate and light, the tables have a strong architectural quality that is further enhanced by the painterly mix of woods such as purpleheart, white ash and charcoal-dyed bird's-eye maple." Many of Buzak's more contemporary pieces contain exotic-looking veneers—dyed bird's-eye, curly or quilted maple, pink satinwood and eucalyptus burl—and reflect the craftsman's interest in geometric shapes.