Jim’s approach to furniture design might best be described as "industrial" and "industrious." Born and raised in a small Ohio town, surrounded by strip mining and his family’s steel trucking business, he was inspired to create objects both useful and artistic. An introduction to architectural metal work in his brother’s Brooklyn, New York, welding shop led to Jim’s 1990s collaboration with clothing designer and artist Morgan Puett, wherein he built interiors for Morgan’s infamous Soho stores. With these projects, Jim began to integrate his signature materials — leather, raw steel, and felt — into architectural elements and furniture design, including a wall-to-wall Joseph Beuys-influenced leather floor for a Tribeca boutique.

Jim lives and works in New York. He has had two solo shows at the Leslie Tonkonow Gallery in New York City and been a selected participant in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum’s National Design Triennial.