Category: Personal Favorites

All the good furniture designers I know are deeply informed by the past, and they either fold it into their work or rebel against it.

I always try to come clean about my design influences for several reasons. First, it’s only fair to acknowledge the people who blazed the trail before you were born. And second, I hope to inspire other makers to plumb the past to inform their contemporary work.

Today I applied the final coat of paint to a pair of Welsh stick chairs for a customer in Colorado. No detail of these chairs has been copied. I designed these from scratch. Yet, I’d be a liar if I didn’t acknowledge all the places where these chairs came from.

First there’s John Brown. His writing introduced me to this form, and his book “Welsh Stick Chairs” had this drawing in it, which has haunted me for about 20 years.

It’s a stick chair with a back that has four spindles and a bent arm bow. And the legs have always mystified me. While they have no stretchers, there are holes drawn on the legs that suggest the chair might have had stretchers at one time.

Then came Don Weber. I’ve taken his chairmaking class twice now. The first time was more than 13 years ago, and a second time was this fall in conjunction with his new video: “Build a Welsh Stick Chair.” Weber is an excellent instructor and makes the construction process easy. I highly recommend this video if you would like to build a chair in this vein.

And there are many other chairs that I encountered on the way. Some had stretchers. Some didn’t. Some had simple turnings. Others had bulbous English-style stretchers. I’ve tried to boil down all the details so they are informed by the past but are not tied to a particular era.

I know, it seems a messy way to design furniture: Gather all the designs you like and put them in a giant food processor. You hope for transcendent guacamole and fear fluffy mackerel pudding.

— Christopher Schwarz

I was 13 when I applied for the journalism program at my middle school. I was accepted (thank Jebus), and I remained a full-time student of the craft until I was 24 and released on the world to collect a generous four- and (eventually) five-figure salary in this trade.

I’m often asked by kids and grownups how to become a writer. What books should they read? What classes should they take? After a lifetime of study, here’s my answer:

Writing classes suck. During my 11 years of full-time training I never got much of value from a writing class. (Sorry Roger Boye and Dave Nelson.)

So how do you become a better writer? Easy. Take classes in editing. The three most important classes I took during my training were:

1. Copy editing. During this class I learned the rules of the road. These rules became tattooed on my brain through ritual abuse (that’s copy editing!). Once I knew the rules, I learned the consequences of bending or breaking them. The beautiful thing about becoming a copy editor is that you can churn out copy that a copy editor will love.
2. Magazine editing. During this class I learned to flush away my “self.” A good editor can become a stupid person who is reading a piece of writing for the first time. This “cloak of stupidity” allows you to see the giant holes in a story, the poor organization and the odd word choices. While I can use this skill on other people’s work, I also use it on my own writing. Though it’s difficult to edit your own work, once you don the “cloak of stupidity,” you can turn out writing that is easily understood by anyone.
3. Law and ethics. If you don’t have a moral groundwork for your writing, you will write things you don’t believe in (I’m talking here about the profession of public relations). A class such as this will teach you the limits of writing (what’s legal and not). It will give you the confidence to exercise your First Amendment rights (truth is a defense). And it will show you how the “appearance of impropriety” should color every decision you make as a writer.

So what the heck does this have to do with woodworking? Lots. If you want to become good at building casework, I think you should take a class in chairmaking.

I’ve taken a lot of classes on both casework and chairmaking. The casework classes have been forgettable. The chairmaking classes have made me a better woodworker. Why? It’s complicated. Chairmaking shows you several things you won’t get from a “build a box” class.

1. Assemblies are living systems. When you make a chair you try to use the least amount of wood to create the greatest strength. So you have to understand wood, how it moves and how it reacts to the tools. After taking chairmaking classes, I knew how to put assemblies in tension so they would resist certain forces. I knew how to better design for moisture exchange. I saw the benefit of green wood, dry wood and everything between.
2. Angles are meaningless. After you take a class in chairmaking you see that every angle is as valid as 90°. While machines like 90°, you don’t have to stick with that angle (or its cousin, 45°) to make good furniture.
3. Form is everything. While chairs can have intricate details, they are mostly a silhouette. And once you can see that silhouette, your casework will ricochet into new directions.

I don’t teach chairmaking classes (or any other classes these days), so I’m not trying to sell you anything. I can say that most woodworkers who do casework have deep trepidation about chairs. That should tell you something.

Forget the box for a minute. Try compound-angle joinery for a week and you’ll laugh at boxes afterward.

— Christopher Schwarz

Today I went to a book reading by Nick Offerman in support of his latest book “Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop.” Megan Fitzpatrick at Popular Woodworking Magazine bought us tickets, and the price of the ticket included a copy of his book.

I’m going to write a book report on “Good Clean Fun” as soon as I finish consuming it. If the readings Offerman gave today are any indication, I will need to invest in some adult diapers for the experience.

I do want to share one beautiful moment during the program.

Right after Offerman took the stage he told the following to the audience (I’m going to paraphrase because I wasn’t taking steno):

Take my book and rip out all the pages. Roll them into joints. Sell the joints. Take the money you earned from selling those joints and buy every book written by Wendell Berry.

For those of you who don’t know Mr. Berry, he is a literary giant who lives in Henry County, Ky. He’s a Faulkner-esque novelist, poet and agricultural activist who works through the Berry Center. (The book reading was also to support the work of the Berry Center.)

I first encountered Berry’s writing when we moved to Lexington, Ky., in 1993. The first real friends we made in town – Chris and Lee Poore – had graduated from Western Kentucky University and were huge fans of Berry’s work. I’ve been a fan ever since.

I do want to chastise Offerman for one aspect of his call to action. His new book is printed on coated paper, which won’t burn very well. And though I don’t smoke (anything), I suspect that the paper coating will also inhibit the flow of gases.

So if you are going to try this stunt, I recommend ripping up one of my black-and-white books, such as “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” which is printed on uncoated, acid-free paper. Also, my book has more pages, so you’ll make more money.

— Christopher Schwarz