This post is a continuation from a series of posts following a “read-along” or book club of sorts. This week, I’ll be discussing a second chunk of “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook” by James Krenov, up to page 51. Next week, we’ll reading up to page 69, and you can leave comments and questions about pages 51-69 in the comments section below, which I’ll answer and incorporate into next week’s post. One note: a focus for next week’s posts will be the picture pieces in that section of the book, in particular the Oregon pine violin cabinet, the chess table and the music stand, so give those a good look!
The first essay in this second section, from pp. 24 to 27, is classically Krenovian writing – it weaves its way through a half-dozen topics, roughly orbiting a prompt about approaches to woodworking and education. I could have included it in last week’s writings. It has more in common with the first essays of the book in that it’s somewhere amongst critique, observation and a call to arms. But it is a great three-page bit of writing, if you don’t mind the jump-cuts in topics.
The most interesting part of that first essay is the discussion of the roles of schooling. There is a lot of personal experience there. By the time of this writing, Krenov had taught in a few schools, and he hadn’t been happy with the situation at any of them. One note jumps at me, in particular:
Education assumes (in order to justify itself to trustees and public) the role of being both selective and “democratic.” This is often disastrous, and results in work on a level of generalities.
The best is by its very nature selective: why not accept it as such? This doesn’t make crafts as nostalgia or entertainment or therapy less justifiable. It’s simply that as a dedication, as the center of one’s life, craft is one thing – and as anything else it is a different and separate matter.
Both are needed. Between them we should have an enticing dialogue. But force them together and you get gibberish.
Krenov would never fall on either side of the “democratic” or “selective” tug-of-war that he saw occurring. From this passage, you might think he would consider himself in a camp with “the best.” But later he refers to himself as an amateur – certainly more on the “democratic” side of things. But maybe he is an amateur that has taken his craft “as the center of one’s life?”
This isn’t a critique of his writing or reasoning – in fact, as Ryan Stadt noticed in last week’s comments, it’s one of the things I appreciate most in this book. It’s contradiction, or maybe something more like exploration, trying on different outfits or approaches and seeing what each one evokes. It leaves a lot to consider for its readers, and yet still forms a cohesive impression of Krenov, if not firm descriptors. “Dedicated amateur” is both a fitting title and nonsensical.
I also mentioned that you might want to look at the 1967 Craft Horizons article “Wood: The Friendly Mystery” last week, and I hinted it might be relevant here. That article, too, is typically Krenovian in structure – a bit rambling and stream-of-consciousness. But to my eyes it doesn’t stagger. It’s more like a quick jog between pointed thoughts.
To give you some insight into why I picked the Craft Horizons article to accompany this week’s passage – you may have noticed that in some cases they were one and the same. One of Krenov’s more poetic passages (I remember it was frequently present at the school) is the last paragraph on p. 32 of “Notebook,” beginning “I stand at my workbench.” You may have seen it on the second page of the Craft Horizons article, too.
But it isn’t just this one paragraph that repeats. In fact, according to Craig McArt, an early student and friend of Krenov’s, “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook” was, in fact, just an elaboration and extension of the 1967 article for Craft Horizons.
McArt studied with Krenov during his “Scandinavian Seminar” from RIT in 1966. He had secured a Fulbright scholarship to study with European designers, and he began working with Krenov in the basement workshop in the Stockholm suburbs. When McArt returned from Sweden later that year, he carried with him a short essay by Krenov, which would be published a year later by Craft Horizons, titled “Wood: The Friendly Mystery.” It was Krenov’s first published writing on woodworking in the United States. McArt encouraged Jim over the next several years to write more, and eventually dictated passages began arriving at RIT in 1973, the tapes which became “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook.”
So, this earlier article is a fascinating insight into the larger form of the book. There are paragraphs in that essay that become entire essays in “Notebook” – tales of uncovering fine hardwoods in the rough, visiting clients, all of it was expanded upon to form much of the independent passages in “Notebook.”
Scott (tsstahl), in his comments from this reading, picked up on a phrase that I, too, found really amusing in the Craft Horizons article – “calculated originality.” Krenov is discussing a series of traps that can decide one’s craft quality, aesthetic or output:
To turn dull tools, clumsiness, or lack of patience into that rustic touch. Or to make a curiosity of the craft by a brand of calculated originality. Or to be only practical, weighing costs against time against salability—and accepting all the consequences. All.
This quick list is one that jumps out at me – it touches on three compromises nearly every woodworker has made or has caught themselves considering. Laziness and dullness turned into an affect is everywhere – and everyone has had that frustrated moment of defeat where you decide to like the result of something because you know the other option is a lot more work. We’ve fallen into the first trap. We’ve all thought “wouldn’t it be cool, or so like me, to put a _____ on this piece?” And, then, we fall into the second trap. Or, we think “maybe I’ll just make these boxes with miters, not dovetails – for those people and that money…” The third trap closes around our foot.
And in one paragraph he gets into that, and further, more eloquently and in a way that feels more familiar. As Scott noted, “the guy has a knack for really nailing down something.” I’ll agree to that – he had a bandolier of these axioms that were always around at his lectures, when he taught or when he played tennis. While I’ve been interviewing people for the biography, more than once I have had two different folks, separated in their interactions with Jim by 30 years, remembered the same phrase used in similar settings. The connections between this essay and “Notebook” further indicate that Krenov was not above reusing or elaborating on prior thoughts.
After this first essay is Krenov’s romantic passage on his handplanes, starting on p. 30. It’s a beautiful passage that I won’t pick apart too much. I find some joy in reading it, and I love the image of the hand plane as “the cabinetmaker’s violin.” For many outside of Krenov’s school or the world of studio furniture-making, Krenov’s most tangible legacy after the books is the planes, which many now call “Krenov planes.” And, hearing Krenov describe them in this passage makes the tool sound like magic. A good portion of the letters and writings that Krenov received after the publication of “Notebook” ask for more details about these planes. And in “The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking,” Krenov devotes significant time to their construction (starting on p. 80 in that book!).
Following this essay on planes is an essay on knives on p. 38. Krenov had a life-long love of knives – he had gotten his first in an air drop of supplies to one of the remote Alaskan village he was raised in, and from an early age he carried a knife. The carved elements of his furniture, the pulls, latches and small details, are part of what is so compelling in his work, to my eye. While it’s tempting to attribute this penchant for carving to a slöjd influence, maybe through Malmsten, I believe it was present in him before he thought to make cabinets. That said, some of the forms of these details were influenced by Swedish culture. David Welter, a long time colleague at Krenov’s school, remembers that Krenov had found inspiration for some of these carved elements from carved parts on the Vasa ship, which was first restored and exhibited in 1961, just two years into Krenov’s independent practice as a cabinetmaker.
Looking at this already lengthy post, I won’t try a deep dive into the last two essays of the assigned section – but they, again, embody the wonderful meandering and compelling stream-of-consciousness writing that makes this book so much more than a straightforward treatise on craft. His essay on signing work, which begins with his considerations on “perfection,” seems, to be under the influence of Yanagi’s “Unknown Craftsman,” which was released in English in 1972 and was one of Krenov’s favorite books on craft alongside David Pye’s “The Nature and Art of Workmanship.” Whatever you think of those books, I enjoy Krenov’s digestion of what it means to sign work – in the end, he concedes that he owes a signature to the customers who bought his work. In that moment, Krenov concedes that some of the value of his work is in its provenance. That narrowly escapes the contradiction of his assertion that a craftsperson’s presence should be felt in the form and aesthetics of a piece, not in a placard or the attachment of a signature. But, again, he plays the realist – and I certainly appreciate his practice of signing the work, as it’s made my investigations that much easier.
The last essay, which starts with a prompt concerning setting up shop, is more of a list of pessimistic considerations of what it is to be a craftsperson. This writing starkly resembles the body of writing Krenov did for Form magazine in Sweden – but his pessimism for those who might succeed him in his particular approach to craft is one that changed significantly over the first three books he wrote. Here, he suspects there are few who might be able to eschew trends, conveniences or that same “calculated originality” from the Craft Horizons article. A favorite bit of Krenovian advice of mine begins at the end of p. 45:
Try to find the sort of people for whom there is another originality – that of the quiet object in unquiet times.
This single sentence is again a place where Krenov’s dexterous use of language brings about a rich set of images. Maybe something stunning, exciting, compulsive or loud can be remarkable and persuasive (Chester Cornett comes to mind), but when I look at the objects of craft that I prize most in our home, most of them are unassuming and compelling in their “quietness,” so to speak. One of Peter Follansbee’s carved spoons I have on a shelf in the kitchen comes to mind, as does a small white oak basket I found at a local antique mall for a pittance. Out in the world, many of Krenov’s pieces strike me this way – so, too, does Noguchi’s sculpture, or much of Jere Osgood’s furniture, or Shoji Hamada’s pottery. Don’t get me wrong – I love sensation. But what Krenov is warning against is the pursuit of sensation as a means of aesthetic inspiration, not an organic embodiment of the maker’s personality.
The quiet object in unquiet times, as a prompt for a beginning craft aesthetic, is as good a place to start as I can think of. Naturally, everyone develops from there. At times Krenov’s own work went far from a quiet aesthetic, but the context of his prompt is important. He was definitely reacting to the postmodern furniture and second wave of studio makers making their way to the stage in the 1960s and 1970s.
I’ll wrap up my own words on the passage here, and highlight a few notes from the comments and questions you all had about this passage – I could go on, but for brevity’s sake, I’d better not.
Steve Schuler (literaryworkshop) asked which languages Krenov spoke. I answered in the comments, but I’ll echo them here also because it’s a question I see quite a bit, amplified by the confusion as to his nationality. Krenov was born in Russia to Russian-speaking parents, but from a young age was bilingual in Russian and English. His mother, Julia, was a language tutor most of her life, and was educated in the Empress Dowager’s school in St. Petersburg, so she grew up fluent in Russian and French. She also spent quite a lot of time in England in her youth, so she was proficient in English, too, and her memoir was written in English with no sign of struggle. Krenov also had some amount of Italian and French vocabulary, absorbed in his childhood around his mother and in his trips around post-war Continental Europe. And, he was, after a few years living there, fluent in Swedish, and his wife and children were bilingual English and Swedish speakers. So, he spoke three languages fluently, and a few more conversationally – he had a gift for language, to be sure.
Commenter Michael Valentinas was off by a few years in his remembrance of Krenov’s coming to woodworking late, but it is true that Krenov started his craft much later than most – he enrolled at the Verkstadsskola in 1957, at the age of 37. It’s a remarkable fact, made more incredible that by 1964 he was being shown in the most influential exhibitions at the time in Sweden. That betrays the fact that Krenov had an undeniable knack for woodworking. While I’ve never thought of the “10,000 hours” idea as anything more than a myth, he blows it out of the water – some of his first pieces were already nearly fully developed, and one that comes to mind is pictured above, built in 1962, just three years after his schooling. If anything, Krenov’s story is more like a “find what you’re good at and love to do” flavor of encouragement, though he was certainly a late-bloomer in that department.
I’m enjoying this series of posts, and I hope you all are still enjoying these long posts! For next week’s post, I’ll be moving up to page 69 of “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook,” though for next week, while I’ll be talking about the writing, I’d like to focus on the photographed pieces in that section. Three pieces are pictured here – his “Chess Table,” the Oregon pine “Violin Cabinet” and the “Music Stand,” the latter two of which can also be found in his fourth book for Van Nostrand Reinhold, “Worker in Wood,” published in 1981 (if you want some better photos). There is also some great writing here, too – if you want to join in and read along, please do, and use the comments section below to ask any questions, highlight a passage or make a comment on this next section of the book or the photographed works therein. I hope this quiet activity, a bit of light reading and careful thought, is something people are enjoying in these nutty times. Frankly, it’s one of the few things that’s helping me know when one week ends and the next begins!
Did his work tend to get smaller as he developed his style?. Some of the early cabinets, like that “lemonwood” cabinet seem to be of a more typical scale (although it is always hard to tell).
The Lemonwood cabinet is among that largest of his pieces, but even that is relatively small, just under six foot (at 6’2″, my eye level would be almost level with the top). And the scale goes down from there – he wrote a short essay for the beginning of “Worker in Wood,” his fourth book for Van Nostrand Reinhold in 1981, titled “The Size of Objects,” where he clarifies the size of his work. It is certainly smaller than most considered, and a few images there show that some of the cabinets are much smaller. In his own words, he also moved to making smaller work as he got older, being more daunted by large scale work as he felt his strength or ambition for handling large planks diminishing. But the forms didn’t change – a cabinet on a stand would just be a little shorter than before. He also did work on different scales over time, and still made pieces on the scale of the Lemonwood cabinet later in his career.
“…or make a comment on this next section of the book or the photographed works therein.”
Oh, great, now you really want to take a tuning fork to my woodworking insecurities.
On page 41 of my edition, top right, is a picture of a door latch. I assume the latch itself was carved, for which as you noted, Krenov’s affinity for all things knife-y would account. I experimented with a similar latch several times. At first I assumed the spring was around the screw and the travel of the latch dictated largely by the depth of recess in the latch for the screw. I’m pretty sure this is a correct assumption in the pictured piece. I found that this arrangement did not have much ‘resisting’ power.
For a cabinet that costs in the tens of thousands you can safely assume that course treatment is not an expected occurrence. My experience with more pedestrian implementations showed the latch was not very useful in everyday situations. Since a watchful parent and 20 lb granite backstop are not features that can be baked into every design, I had to come up with something else. The design I put together has the screw off center toward the back. The spring goes on the screw, or more often, in matching recesses on the front part of the catch/stop and the case. The channel is tapered or the catch is thicker on the back (easier to do the catch). This arrangement allows for the catch to act as a wedge against hard closure (slamming). I’m probably not describing this well, but that’s OK because the point I’m getting to is that I never would have thought of it on my own without first seeing it in ACN. It really does make for an unobtrusive site at a distance. How many times have you seen a nice cabinet and as soon as the door is opened your eye is molested by that ugly black rectangle of a magnet catch smack in the middle?
Showcase in doussie, page 51. I marked this page with a red pen some time in the past. Two things hit me about this piece. First, I wonder if the cabinet was made to solely display the little test pattern ball? Or maybe the photographer composed the picture with whatever was around? Either way, it is a striking photograph that highlights the ‘positive’ space of the sphere, and then when you’ve had your fill of it, move on to the ‘negative’ space of the cabinet around the sphere. Pretty intense either way.
The second thing I learned was to hide shelves behind door stuff. Normally you look at whatever is being displayed with the door closed. If your eye has to fight with door details and then shelving details, it creates a sensory rollercoaster that necessarily detracts from the objet d’art (fancypants for not flat stuff like paintings). As a result of ‘Showcase in doussie’ in any piece where an interior element is visible from the outside, I always try to make the external harmonize with the visible internal.
I just learned a third thing. I always thought ‘doussie’ was an uncapitalized misprint for some location. I just googled doussie to find out that it is a hard wood. The title describes the cabinet, not where it sits and I’m still an idiot.
The essay beginning on page 44 is one of my favorites. It, too, has a number of red pen highlights from a previous reading. Going over it again now, the whole hits me as a kind of balad to the bright eyed would-be furniture designer/builder. I can picture Kenny Rogers singing Krenov’s wisdom of the ages to future generations of makers.
This was another response that got a little too long. Sigh.
Perhaps Krenov’s definitions of “professional” and “amateur” are not the same as ours. For him, the costs of raw materials, the time it took, those seemed somewhat secondary. The beauty of the end result was more important. He was more an artist than a professional woodworker in that regard. When determining the cost of materials and time though, he probably used a simple determination, not a elaborate breakdown, hence him being an “amateur”. His putting a signature on a piece was probably his way of telling himself the project was done. Hopefully pride also.
He also defines ”amateur” in later writings as very specifically being a definition of a career goal – that an “amateur” did not pursue his work as a means of support. I wish I had insight into how he priced his work, but I don’t think it was up to him, often – more likely it was defined by public perception and the work it joined in galleries and exhibitions. Some of the shows I’ve found where prices were given put Krenov’s work on the same pricing scheme as the other work present, even if that work was decidedly less individual or “bespoke.”
It seems to me that he did not place a premium price on his work. You would have more insight here, but I have read that one frustration with his program at College of Redwoods is that he encouraged students to price their work at unsustainably low prices. The few auction prices I have seen for his work were relatively low (in the $5000 range, which, all considered, seems like a bargain).
I think the combination of his aristocratic roots and his wife’s support prevented (or liberated) him from ever trying make money on his work.
I have two questions:
1. Do you know where to find the largest collection of color photos of his work?
2. Where could one go to see the largest collection of his work in person?
http://thekrenovarchive.org/
Mike posted the archive below, and that’s certainly the best out there, by a long shot. As for in person – he didn’t make enough pieces for any one place to have more a couple – The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm has four, and as far as I know, they have more than any other single entity, certainly in a collection. I’ve only seen maybe 20 pieces in person, mostly in private homes and with his family.
I think Krenov’s work is often misunderstood as being somewhat impractical. But the pieces in this section (chess board, violin cabinet, music stand) prove quite the opposite, that he frequently (or perhaps even mostly) built things for a very specific purpose, and designed them to be quite functional. To that point, i guess I disagree with the notion that he was an “artist” (although I find his work artistic, and the debate of art vs. craft debate is not one I enjoy).
Uff, yeah, let’s leave the “craft/art” debate for some other forum, I can’t stand the conversation.
But, I agree that he could be quite practical. A lot of his earlier work, espcially before the books, was commission based, and necessarily aimed at particular clients and situations. But starting in the mid-1970s, much of his work was speculative, sold in galleries or exhibitions, and was therefore decidedly less targeted to individual needs or situations. That led to more work that was compelling to his own considerations, like an uptick in “cabinets on stands.”
I also think he uses the term “impractical” quite often in the books (the third book was named “The Impractical Cabinetmaker”), though here I think he’s referring to the kind of stubbornness and exactitude with which he approached things, in defiance of profitability or efficiency. In using that term so ofte, I think a general public took to thinking of his work in those terms, not his way or working, and leads to a lot of people assuming he was okay with the work not being “practical” in it’s use – not what he intended, and as you point out, often not true.
The craft/art debate can indeed be onerous, in particular when the conversation focuses on the status of the object. We know that in the act of making art there must be craft[smanship]. Fine.
The more interesting (and on-point) conversation, to me, flows from the (perhaps assumed) intention of the maker- and should perhaps tell us as much about the maker as the object itself.
Artists are (often) happy to obscure their objects within Duchampian word games and meta-conversations. It’s tiring, and is one reason why contemporary art frustrates so many- you never really know where you’re standing, or what you’re “supposed” to be thinking.
Knowing or perceiving that an object is intended to serve a function, and was created with a function in mind (a craft) removes most of the meta-conversational layers. The viewer or user has an immediate point of entry for understanding the object – they know where they’re standing. With a clear frame of reference it’s then more reasonable to consider why the craft object appears the way that it does; beauty and subtlety magnifies, but is subsequent to function.
Notwithstanding a lack of wide-ranging experience with Krenov, it still seems pretty clear to me that his focus was on making objects to serve a purpose. That he chose to execute functional objects with an eye towards finely tuned, subtile sensitivity and beauty, and to encourage others to be aware of, or create, the same will certainly be his legacy.
Though it has little or nothing to do with woodworking, this (from page 59 of my copy) is one I’ve always remembered and which has become more meaningful as the years go by:
“Or maybe it was just the fact that I am a very lucky person. When I feel lucky in the total sense, I also feel very much ashamed for my weaknesses and the times when I have doubted, the instances when I’ve wasted a bit of what is most valuable in life. Time has passed, and I’m somewhere on a hill now. Anywhere I look around is down. Along the rest of the way, I must be less afraid. And more grateful.”
And, though I never met the man, it’s just this sort of thought that’s very telling of what kind of a person he was.
His consideration of his privilege is complex. On the one hand, I have reason to believe (through interactions with colleagues, his family and his students) that he considered himself exceptional in skill and innate talent – which is hard to argue with, and was certainly bolstered by the relative quickness of his success and renown in Sweden. That didn’t always manifest kindly – he really believed that some had “it” and some did not, which was problematic in his teaching practice. Some of that may stem from his legacy from his parents, who were in the upper echelons of Russian society before the revolution and Jim’s birth, which may have lent an air of “lost privilege” to his considerations of his place in the world.
On the other hand, he remained humble and attributed his success to many others, especially his wife Britta, who brought regular employment and a stability to his family and career that he would have been lost without. He did have a gift for nuance and self-reflection, which often did not make it into the public eye, but becomes clear in talking with some of his closer friends and colleagues. Like so much else in his life and writings, he was deeply complex and contradictory – and thank god for that, because it makes my job of writing about him that much more interesting.
The key to Krenov’s self description as “amateur” lies in his knowledge of the French language. Rather than striking a contrast with “professional,” the term adds a deeper meaning. The amateur is the lover who brings heart to his craft. To be a “dedicated amateur,” what could be better?
I appreciate the approach to machines that Krenov sketches out on pages 66-67. As a relative beginner in woodworking, I’ve tried to take my time and be patient with the learning curve of hand tools. So I haven’t prioritized getting any machines beyond a drill press. Most of the time I feel my patience is rewarded with incremental progress toward the kind of woodworker I want to be. However, I will never get back the time that I spent taking 8/4 hard maple down to 1-3/4″ by hand just to make a Moxon vise. “The task of getting the wood to the stage where you can begin to foresee a result and the so-called creative work with fine hand tools is exhausting.” Amen. I’d be ok with a benchtop planer.
Since you directed attention toward the photos in this week’s section, one thing did stand out to me about the violin cabinet on pages 54-55: the Oregon pine Krenov used here has super straight grain. This stands in stark contrast to, for example, the pearwood wall cabinet on page 36. Have you noticed any patterns to Krenov’s grain selection? Does he tend to use straight grain on small pieces, or on rails/stiles, and more figured grain on large panels?
I appreciate the approach to machines that Krenov sketches out on pages 66-67. As a relative beginner in woodworking, I’ve tried to take my time and be patient with the learning curve of hand tools. So I haven’t prioritized getting any machines beyond a drill press. Most of the time I feel my patience is rewarded with incremental progress toward the kind of woodworker I want to be. However, I will never get back the time that I spent taking 8/4 hard maple down to 1-3/4″ by hand just to make a Moxon vise. “The task of getting the wood to the stage where you can begin to foresee a result and the so-called creative work with fine hand tools is exhausting.” Amen. I’d be ok with a benchtop planer.
Since you directed attention toward the photos in this week’s section, one thing did stand out to me about the violin cabinet on pages 54-55: the Oregon pine Krenov used here has super straight grain. This stands in stark contrast to, for example, the pearwood wall cabinet on page 36. Have you noticed any patterns to Krenov’s grain selection? Does he tend to use straight grain on small pieces, or on rails/stiles, and more figured grain on large panels?
I think there are a few things at work in his grain selection. First, he had very different approaches for structural members and panels or showcase pieces – generally, the parts for rails, stiles and the like were straighter grain, the panels were more about graphics and therefore more elaborate in their grain and figure.
But there is also a career-long trend present. In his earliest pieces, it seems like he gravitated more towards softwoods and straighter grain, and as his passion for hunting down wood grew, his tastes and preferences changed to incorporate more elaborate grain. There was also a figurative moment in all this when he started coming to the States and seeing the spalted woods people were sawing themselves over here with chainsaw mills. Bob Sperber, a student of Krenov’s at RIT who also came to work with him in Stockholm, made his own Alaskan mills, and was the source of a lot of Krenov’s spalted maple lumber.
There are even cases where a single large haul of wood impacted his output for years – at certain points, he acquired large amounts of English brown oak, lemonwood, Andaman padauk and European cherry, and you can see that several pieces in a few years would be suited to that specific haul. With his preference to treat certain species and cuts a certain way, his output could often be determined by the lumber he found on a yearly basis. And because he lived with the planks for so long, most of which were air-dried and stored for several years, the effect of a single haul could impact his work for a decade.
It’s been interesting finally sitting down and reading Krenov. When I first got into woodworking some 15 years ago, I read every book dealing with hand tools and hand work that I could find–Mike Dunbar, Roy Underhill, Drew Langsner, Aldren Watson… but somehow I missed Krenov. I’d hear his name tossed around, usually in a handplane discussion. But when I saw pictures of his pieces, I never quite liked the design. The workmanship was obviously first rate, and the execution was perfect in detail. But the designs never quite spoke to me. So I never sought out his books. Now looking at more of his pieces, I think I have the same reaction–I just don’t enjoy his particular aesthetic.
However, the violin cabinet is an exception. I love that piece. The frame and panel, the simple display for the instrument itself (no hangers or hooks), and even the wood selection. Imagine making such a fine piece out of pine! It’s very fine pine of course, but it’s still pine. We have so much of it in this country that we really don’t appreciate the aesthetic qualities of some of our best pine. I’m convinced that if SYP were rarer, it would be highly desirable for its alternating grain colors alone. I’m glad Krenov saw the beauty in that wood. He sure does bring it out in that piece.
Its not actually pine – its clear vertical grain douglas fir. Its a favorite of mine and it is priced like a hardwood (in the ballpark of quartersawn white oak). Oregon Pine is an older name or perhaps a european trade name.
Well that makes a little more sense. As I’m reading further in Krenov, I find his names for wood to be… odd. Some of them are probably older trade terms, like you say. But then he talks about a “birdseye maple” piece that is quite obviously curly maple (pgs. 81-83). Even just calling it “figured” would have been more accurate. It’s so odd, because as a rule Krenov seems to be very careful to describe things precisely, yet proper names throw him sometimes.
Agreed. I also think it can be difficult for modern woodworkers to imagine a world before wikipedia 🙂
Somewhere in notebook he does discuss the loose/romantic way he describes various species. paraphrasing: “You won’t find XYZ name in a book anywhere, but find some old guys at the lumberyard and they will know”
In terms of Douglas Fir, its also helpful to know that taxonomy is part art, part science. It is part if the pine family currently, and what one point in history it was part of the pinus genus.
A few motes there – Mike is correct that it’s Douglas fir, a very different beast than pine – more like a hardwood. The birdseye maple may actually have been birdseye – when it’s quartersawn, the birdseyes figure presents more like flamed maple than the more identifiable pock mocks when it’s flatsawn.
It’s taken some time to decode some of the trade names. Veerola/Virola still exists, but it seems like it was a relatively rare wood in America at the time, and still is nearly undocumented. There are easier ones – “doussié” is afzelia, “kwila” is commonly referred to as merbau, etc. There is a big disconnect in trade names between Europe and the Americas, and that’s certainly part of the puzzle.
When I spent my aforementioned afternoon with him and he presented me with a plane at the end of the day, I asked what type of wood it was. He looked at it for a bit and finally said “I don’t know, something brown”.
I’ve found the wood ID site at http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/ to be an amazing resource when dealing with all of the various names for a single species of wood. The author is especially informative when it come to wood that are known by common names, but are not an actual member of that species (eg “poplar” and cottonwood) or the confusion surrounding the myriad of “rosewoods”.
The site is largely made up of huge collections of picture of each wood in various cuts and color variations. It’s a woodworking resource that I put in the same category as the Sagulator.
The violin cabinet is a beautiful piece. But in the photograph the doors look oddly misaligned. The spacing between the doors is uneven top to bottom, and the top and bottom reveals of the door on the right are uneven. Krenov could not have possibly made it this way. Maybe it is the photo.
Perhaps there was a repair made after it was put in service. The “Acknowledgments” (page 6 in my edition) note that some pieces were photographed in their owners’ homes, presumably after some years of service.
The door itself appears square, just misaligned.
Hey Larry,
As Mike mentioned, these pieces were photographed some time after they were made, but I do think the misalignment is in the photo, not the piece. But, I have reason to think the date given for this piece (1969) is incorrect, as it appeared (or an exact copy) in his first solo show in 1965, “Liv i Trä.” So, byt the time it was photographed it could have been as much as ten years old.