Lost Art Press

Day: December 18, 2018

It Makes No Difference to Me, How They Cried All Over Overseas

Posted on by Lost Art Press

For the last two weeks I’ve been neck-deep in casework – a Monticello bookcase in walnut with pine backboards that is for a long-time customer in Michigan. I haven’t posted much about it because it’s been 10 days of the same: mark, saw, chop, pare. Then repeat until your boogers look like walnut dust (mine do).

But it has given me a lot of time to think about David Pye. Just kidding. Really. No, come back.

Instead, I have had time to think about how casework is different than making chairs. The truth is, they aren’t different. We just think they are different because – for some reason – most of us do only one or the other. Same goes with turning, carving, marquetry etc.

Both chairmaking and casework are about joining pieces of wood. You have to cut to a line. Get a few angles right. Apply a finish. And make sure the structure is sound and can survive seasonal wood movement.

Some aspects of chairmaking might seem foreign – green wood, weird angles and a few new tools. But it’s still wood. And your tools are still steel. The only real difference between the two disciplines is the fact that you think they are different. Or that you think that one is harder than the other.

I am serious, it’s all in your head.

One of the greatest privileges in my career has been to work with accomplished woodworkers all over the globe to help them transform their ideas into a magazine article or a book. The more I worked with these talented people the more I realized that picking up a new skill, such as double-bevel marquetry, is about learning a handful of techniques that aren’t obvious.

To be certain, if you want to master any aspect of the craft, then that takes years of discipline. But if you just want to build a decent chair, carve some letters or turn a bowl – you can do that. Anyone can.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Review of ‘The Intelligent Hand’

Posted on by Kara Uhl

ih_dustjacket_final

Richard Jones, a skilled designer, woodworker, teacher, writer and author of “Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology,” recently helped out at the Classic Hand Tools booth at The North of England Woodworking & Power Tool Show in Harrogate (located in North Yorkshire, England) last month. While there, Richard picked up a copy of David Savage‘s “The Intelligent Hand.”

Richard recently finished reading David’s book, and wrote a review, which he posted on several woodworking forums. He writes:

” … The book is, listed here in no particular order, a mixture of biography, philosophical musings, design methodology built upon an artistic background, drawing as a means to express ideas and develop a personal library of forms, practical methods of working wood, client relations, tying up of loose ends, and so on. He is at turns chatty, reflective, opinionated, and explanatory, has his own way of working, generous to those that have helped or worked with him, and acknowledge his influences.”

And: ” … Do I agree with everything he says? No. Nor will most readers I suspect. On the other hand, he’s not afraid to say it as he sees it, and if you are challenged from time to time, which I was as a relatively experienced (but not well known) furniture designer maker it’s an opportunity to reflect and to evaluate what he says to see if he might be right, and I might be wrong, or vice-versa. If you are fairly new to the subject but possess a desire to develop your own point of view and philosophy, here is a book, along with other sources of information of course, that I think would be beneficial to read.”

You can read the entire review online at UKWorkshop (here) and WoodCentral (here).

You can read more about David’s book here, and more about Richard’s book here.

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

%d bloggers like this: