Now that “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” on its way here, we have many readers asking about the other titles that are in the works here.
Before I do that, let me say that we don’t operate like a traditional publishing company with a publishing schedule. We don’t release a book until everyone – me, the author(s), the layout artist – are happy. So I might tell you a date that we hope to have a book complete, but it will always be a guess.
So with that said, here’s where some, but not all, of our projects are this morning.
“Mouldings in Practice” by Matt Bickford. This will be our next book this year. The book is written and edited. The photos are processed. The hundreds of illustrations are converted to a publishable format. We have a design template, and the designer, Linda Watts, is starting to put all the pieces together on the page. I hope to send this book to the printer by the end of March.
“To Make as Perfectly as Possible” by Don Williams. As many of you know, this project stalled temporarily when one member of the translation and review team had to tend to some important personal business. Things are moving forward again, and the goal is to have this book ready for Christmas. Don has a new blog entry ready on the project that I will post this week.
“By Hand & Eye” (tentative title) by Jim Tolpin and George Walker. Jim and George are hard at work on this book – I’ve been following their collaborative process in GoogleDocs. This book is due in my hands in June. We hope to have this ready for 2012 as well.
We have lots more projects in the works, including two books that I’m writing myself and several projects that I can’t even talk about for competitive reasons. One of these books has been in the works here in my living room for two years and involved a network of helpers here in the city. It should be big – literally – maybe a five-pounder.
Now I’ve got to get back to the shop. I have to finish that secretary in less than two weeks. If I don’t respond to your e-mails quickly, that’s why.
— Christopher Schwarz
Very excited about this one!
The Mouldings one that is!
I just took part in the By Hand and By Eye workshop at the Port Townsend School and am thoroughly impressed by the concepts addressed. The book is going to make an enormous splash.
I took a week-end course with Matt at CVWS back in January and now know everything there is to know about Hs & Rs. (Oh, really!?) And I am presently waiting for a set of his planes. Unfortunately, without him hovering over my shoulder, I suspect that I will be at quite a loss as to how to work with them properly, especially design. (Old house with need for retrofitting of various and sundry mouldings.) Ergo, I really, really need his book. And should I get his book before his planes, so much the better. That way I can read it and bone up on what I was supposed to have learned from him. So get some rest this week-end, Chris, finish your secretary, and then help us poor slobs who need it the most.
My copy of “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” arrived yesterday. I spent about two hours skimming through it, and two things struck me about this book. The attention to details on both the tools and techniques is unusually deep, and the number of tips on what to look out for or not to do was impressive. It was great to read that so many things I’ve learned on my own over decades of looking in other books and experimenting were right there for the reader to absorb – in a simple presentation that both explains why and how. This is an approach that should make this book a great primer for a person looking to expand his or her skills from the “standard” power tools approach into hand tools and historical methods of furniture making. Very impressively done, and I will be reading this one all the way through. I’m looking forward to seeing what these next projects at Lost Art Press offer, as a couple of titles are of interest. IF they are as well done as this one, Chris, you should be able to sleep a little better / worry less about the family finances.
Charlie Driggs