What other craft would be interested in Welsh chairs? Try the workwear industry.
Recently TOAST sent a crew to Williams’ shop in Wales to interview him about his chairmaking and Welsh chairs in general. They produced a lovely little feature on Williams that you can read (for free) here.
And then last week, Paynter featured Williams’ book in their online newsletter as one of the books they’re reading. See the image above.
Both of these workwear companies are influential in the workwear market. Heck, I even own a couple Paynter garments (a jacket and a wool vest/waistcoat – good stuff).
Congrats to Williams for finally being recognized as the fashion icon that he is.
The gate Don Weber built, which is still in use on Monroe Robinson’s property.
I’m working on a profile of Don Weber, which will appear in Issue 4 of “The Stick Chair Journal.” To help share Don’s life story – so rich and full it could be a book – I’ve been reaching out to folks he’s known at various points in his life, folks he calls friends to this day.
Earlier this week, Matty Sears spoke with me on the phone about his deep friendship with Don, and their respect for each other.
Mike Abbott wrote, “His great enthusiasm for anything to do with green woodwork and chairmaking encouraged me to throw myself into giving pole-lathe demonstrations at country fairs, which helped publicise my chairmaking courses.”
“Don first started working with greenwood and blacksmithing while he lived here,” Monroe Robinson wrote of the time period years ago when Don lived on his property. “He built a small bodger structure on the edge of the redwood forest using small redwood trees and recycled corrugated steel for roofing and siding. Eventually, he put a triphammer in the little structure. I always loved the sound of Don working there, including the triphammer. Don’s work always inspired me – making something useful and beautiful out of what most folks would call nothing. He made a little gate that he installed between our house … I love the gate to this day.”
These conversations share a common thread of goodwill and generosity, a welcome respite from the flashes of news on my phone.
It’s a theme present in nearly every profile I write – folks not just talking about themselves, but sharing the kindness of people in their lives and especially the kindness that can be found in the craft community.
From a 1936 “Chips from the Chisel” column in The Woodworker Magazine, edited by Charles H. Hayward:
“The Italian Renaissance was the golden age of craftsmanship. There was an amazing flowering of genius in painting, sculpture, goldsmith’s and silversmith’s work, in fact in every kind of craft, research and experiment were carried to the limit. Ideas were in the air, bandied about in workshop and studio, till the fertile soil of genius brought them to perfection. And it is significant that it was an age of great good fellowship among craftsmen. Competition was terrific; there were so many of them at the game and the prizes were glittering, but again and again it is evident from the pages of Vasari how freely they pooled their experiences, and how freely criticism, advice and generous appreciation circulated. They were a mixed bunch too. Dullards and plodders worked side by side with talented men, and there were inspired cut-throats among the men of genius. But this much they all had in common: a love of the work they found to their hand and a readiness to pass on the knowledge they had acquired.”
And so often, good fellowship is unexpected.
Earlier this month, I received a package from Shad Watson. Turns out, Shad’s family are descendants of Nannau, now settled in North Carolina. They’ve lived on the same creek for more than 250 years in an area called Nanneytown.
In the package was a silver coin commemorating Nannau’s legends. On one side is a design heavily influenced by Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s 1813 sketch of the infamous oak, which is featured in my book, “Cadi & the Cursed Oak.” GS-JJ helped Shad adapt the design and together, they minted 10 medallions.
Shad simply wanted to thank those who have a deep affection for Nannau and work to share its stories. (Thank you, Shad!)
Kindness and making things, whether it’s woodworking, coins or jazz, always bring to mind one of my favorite stories from Jennie Alexander. Here, an excerpt from her Meet the Author profile:
Baltimore Jazz Trio, 2002
Jennie spent her childhood pounding away at the piano and later became a self-taught jazz musician who played professionally. “I enjoyed that very much and I met some wonderful people,” she says. “I grew up in the time when New Orleans jazz was being revised and at the same time be-bop was being created. And it was very interesting that the two groups coincided. In other words, they knew each other. They hung out together. We got together and had a good time.”
One of the more well-known jazz musicians at the time was a man named Benny, who Jennie said was very active on the be-bop side, when not in jail. The two never met until many years later, when Jennie was transitioning. It was 2007. The last job Jennie ever played as a male was with Benny on drums. The two were part of a trio playing at one of Jennie’s alma maters, St. John’s College.
“It was a wonderful job,” Jennie says. “I had driven Benny down from Baltimore and we drove back and I said, ‘Benny, would you like dinner?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ And so I went upstairs, came back as a female and we went to dinner. We had a very pleasant dinner. He is just a nice, gentle person with a wonderful beat, by the way. And two-thirds of the way into dinner Benny looked and me and said, ‘John! You’ve really changed!’ And that was the nicest, from-the-heart little thing.”
Nothing more was said, and the two finished dinner. “It speaks to jazz, friendship and kindness,” Jennie says. “And those are such wonderful, wonderful aspects of life that I enjoy and, of course, friendship and kindness have much to do with woodworking, too.”
I hope you have found that kindness has much to do with woodworking, too.
This is your last chance at one of our blue coffee mugs. We are closing them out this month in the store. Here’s the story.
Last year, our warehouse flooded during a freak storm and the failure of our city’s stormwater system. We lost about 3,000 books in the flood, but other products got swamped, too.
Our final batch of our blue 12 oz. coffee mugs from Grey Fox Pottery in Wisconsin were submerged for several hours in the stormwater. It took us time to recover them from their cardboard packaging (which was ruined). During the last few weeks, we have cleaned off all the mugs and run them all through two sanitary cycles with high-strength detergent. They are cleaner now than when we first received them.
We are closing out this style of mug, so we are offering these at a significant discount. The mugs are safe for the dishwasher and the microwave. And are handmade by an artists’ collective. Quantities are limited. These are nice, handmade things at a crazy low price. Buy one here.
Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement.To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books.
Send us your own ideas! Email kara@lostartpress.com. You can read more about the submission process here.
Today’s pick is courtesy of Jay Abramovitz. Thanks, Jay!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
I wanted to build Peter Galbert’s shavehorse (as detailed in his book Chairmaker’s Notebook), but I didn’t have adequate floor space in my shop. So I came up with the following adaptation of Galbert’s design, which mounts easily and securely to my benchtop, can be stored under the bench when not in use, maintains the key functional elements of Galbert’s design and can be operated from a sitting position. In addition, the entire shavehorse can be made entirely out of 2x4s from the home center with the exception of 1″-thick material for the front end of the shavehorse platform and the treadle.
Each joint is glued and secured with four 1/4″ x 4″ Spax PowerLag screws at the four corners of the joint (two screwed in from one side of the joint and two from the other side).
The horizontal brace rests on the top of the bench with the vertical brace flush against the front of the bench. A holdfast secures the horizontal brace against the benchtop.
A 12″ length of 2×4 slides into the back of the shavehorse platform and is pushed up until it touches the bottom of the benchtop. A clamp across the back end of the shavehorse platform holds the 12″ length in place. This provides additional support for the shavehorse platform when in use, and allows for easy installation and removal of the shavehorse when the 12″ length is removed.
The vertical brace nests between the two pieces of the horizontal brace at the top and the shavehorse platform at the bottom, and is glued and screwed as noted above. A length of 17-1/2” for the vertical brace positions the shavehorse platform at the ideal height on my 34″-high bench when sitting on a chair in front of the shavehorse. But the length of the vertical brace may need to be increased or decreased depending on the height of your bench and the preferred height of the shavehorse platform.
The rest of the shavehorse construction follows Galbert’s design.
I’ll also plug Galbert’s Shavehorse Adjuster and Benchcrafted’s Crubber, both of which I used in my build and would recommend highly.
Make plans to be in Covington on Jan. 29 for a fun evening with three of the best hand tool guys on the internet: James Wright, Rex Krueger & Eoin Reardon. All three of them will be at our headquarters and store on that day. And we’re all going to a local brewery afterwards to talk woodworking and hang out with readers and viewers.
Here are the details: The open house begins at 5 p.m. Jan. 29 at our storefront and fulfillment center: 407 Madison Ave., Covington, KY 41011. We’ll offer tours of the old building, which was a factory for making woodworking cutters from 1980 to 2019. The storefront will be open as well, in case you want to buy something.
Then, when we’re sick of that place, we’ll all head to Braxton Brewing Co., a short walk from our building. They have beer. You can order Dewey’s pizza from inside the brewery, or you can get food at any one of a dozen good places around the block.
If you plan to join us, could you please let us know via this link? If we get too many signups, we’ll need to let Braxton know.
It will be fun. Promise.
Why are these three guys in Covington? We are working on a group project that we’ll all be sharing via all of our free channels. Come to the open house and find out more.
