Ohio University alum Fred Hill ’98 earned a biology degree, left grad school, joined a band, started his own furniture firm–and ended up on a reality TV show, reports the Akron Beacon Journal.
Hill earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences Pre-Med from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University.
He does his furniture designing in a renovated bomb factory in Cleveland.
…The former Stow resident promises to bare his ruthlessness as one of 13 competitors in Framework, a TV series premiering next week that pits furniture makers in a series of challenges involving unconventional materials or demanding restrictions. It’s sort of like Iron Chef, but with wood.
The show debuts at 10 p.m. Tuesday on Spike TV….
And Hill, apparently, is the lightning rod.
Going into the show, he knew conflict made for good television, he explained. He also knew that criticizing and upsetting his competitors would be the best way to distract them from producing their best work.
He set out to use that knowledge to his advantage. “The person on Framework,” he said, “is like all of my worst [attributes].”…
Furniture making is an unlikely career for a guy who started out studying pre-medicine at Ohio University and eventually found himself leaving graduate school at Kent State to play and tour with the roots band Roger Hoover and the Whiskeyhounds. He was introduced to woodworking by his friend Gabe Sutton, who gave Hill a job in his former furniture shop in Kent after a band breakup.
Pretty soon Hill cleaned up an old table saw in his mom’s garage, bought a sander and started making his own furniture. His first piece was a table he made as a wedding gift for a friend. His second piece was a commission.
See Hill’s work at http://bombfactoryfurniture.com, follow him on Twitter at @FreddyHill888.
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