“Campaign Furniture” is off to the printer, and I have the color proofs sitting at my feet. We’re working on getting the cover to our liking (it’s still rough so be still your sharp tongues) and we have been reaching out to our retailers to see if they would like to carry this title.
When the book is released in early March, here are the retailers that have (so far) signed on:
- Lee Valley Tools, Canada
- Tools for Working Wood, Brooklyn
- Classic Hand Tools, UK
- Henry Eckert Fine Tools, Australia
- Lie-Nielsen Toolworks
More to come, we hope.
Also, if you don’t read my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine, you might be interested in this entry on the Douro chair. The first person to get me access to an original Douro chair gets the first autographed copy of “Campaign Furniture.”
— Christopher Schwarz
For what it is worth, i like the direction you are going with the cover.
You could write to Charles Douro, the current Marquess at Number One London and see if he has one.
Apsley House is his part time address and the Wellington Museum.
He is charming and interested in the arts.
Told Dictum that I would by Campaign Furniture (and other Lost Art Press Books not in their catalog) … maybe some other german readers could do the same to lower our shipping cost 😉
I’m disappointed that the narwhal didn’t make the cover. I was looking forward to rainbows.
The narwhal is inside the book.
Promise.
Isn’t it going to take a long time to install that brass hardware on every book you sell? 😛
We have child laborers. Duh!
By the way, Lie-Nielsen has signed on (in a big way) to carry the book. I’ve added them to the list above. Thanks Mainers!
That looks it it’s shaping up nicely. A few oddities jump right out at me though.
You just wrote “Combining gothic and neo-classical shapes always looks wrong to my eye” about Jean-Charles Moreux reimagined Roorkee chair. https://blog.lostartpress.com/2014/01/30/a-1930s-french-take-on-the-roorkee/
That’s exactly how I feel about the juxtaposition of crudely (there I said it although I must have meant “robustly”) hand drawn work with either ruled or computer generated work. It’s not that it should never be done it’s just that difference is what we have been conditioned to read as an important element of communication.
Consider the use of italics for example. Randomly throwing a few words written in italics into a blog post would make most readers wonder what they are supposed to indicate. A word in bold text here and there would add to the confusion.
The hand drawn pull is a powerful center, but featuring that without cleaning it up is like attaching a table top with scrub plane marks to a meticulously scraped support structure. If that’s the design intent (hello “art furniture”) fine, but without a clear indication that it’s a choice it becomes a head scratcher for anyone who sees it.
Using a french curve to clean up lines is the drawing equivalent of following a turning saw with a spokeshave. Drawing freehand gives you the freedom to deviate from the limitations a compass or rule imposes, the french curve smoothes the inaccuracies. If you need symmetry make a couple little tick marks on the tool and flip it over for the other side. Over time using the aid will train your hand if you keep your hand relaxed and follow the curve as much by eye as by pushing against it.
The blank spot where the bail would be is another oddity. Did it fall off somewhere in India? That easy to do when you fill in a line drawing. Starting that way is kind of like drawing 3 standard views of an item and thinking you have designed in 3 dimensions. Not really.
Since this thing is going to be done in pure gold economy is a concern, but I’d suggest filling in where the bail goes and leaving a fine blank line around it. The same would make sense for the screws. In the case of the bail a blank space indicates an object, in the case of the screws a line indicates the blank space of the slot. The visually simpler solution would be to fill in the screw heads, surround them with a blank circular line, and indicate the slot with a blank line of a similar weight. That may push the limits of what can be done in gold though.
Disastrous as it is? No, but a certain level of attention to detail is what distinguishes the work of most of the hand tool and furniture makers whose work gets mentioned here. When Mr. Schwarz encounters the work of someone who has knocked out a Windsor or Queen Anne chair with awkward unmatched legs I’m sure he can offer some words of encouragement and even think that the maker’s work may some day be of note, but we would rarely if ever see such a thing celebrated here.
Chris, please understand this as encouragement and a genuine belief that your drawings will someday be of note.
Is it March yet? Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. I am curious about the cover too. Thank you for the list of retailers.