Today Bob Mould is 62. That simple fact brings me great joy.
As someone who has tried to remain creative into middle age, I am constantly worried that I will one day wake up and have nothing else to write. Nothing new to build. No areas of the craft or furniture left that I want to explore.
Yet somehow every day I am eager to pick up the tools, read a new (or old) book and try something I haven’t done before. Will this urge leave me?
Maybe. But maybe not. And so I put Bob Mould’s latest album, “Blue Hearts,” and sit down with the LP’s lyric sheet in the library. I’ve been listening to Mould since I was 18 when I first heard “Flip Your Wig” thundering down the hallway of my dorm freshman year.
Mould’s band, Husker Du, were like nothing I had ever heard in Arkansas. And I would argue that he single-handedly changed the course of rock music while he was in his 20s.
Out of debt to this man, I bought every one of his albums when they came out. When he slipped into electronica and dance music in the early 2000s I was almost done with him. But something on every album – maybe just one song – kept me adding the CDs to my collection.
In 2012, Mould changed gears – he downshifted back into first gear, and the noise was incredible. The album “Silver Age” rejected the drum machine and brought back the loud and distorted guitar that is the sonorous background noise in my skull. The album was as good as anything Mould had written in his 20s. And his following four albums each exceeded the previous one.
I have played his 2020 album “Blue Hearts” so many times I might wear through the 180-gram vinyl.
So anytime I worry about remaining creative into my late 50s and 60s, I remind myself that it’s possible to still stoke the ashes and find the same fire is burning hot below.
Late last night as I was lying in bed, the topic and structure for my next book came into perfect focus. I scribbled a few words in a notepad on my nightstand. (I think you’ll be happy to hear those words weren’t “chair” or “workbench.”) And I rolled over to sleep like a log.
And today Bob Mould is 62. And that fact brings me great joy.
This post originally appeared on Peter Follansbee’s blog, Joiner’s Notes. Reprinted here with permission.
I read last week that chairmaker Dave Sawyer passed away. I never knew him, but I felt very connected to his work through our many mutual friends. Over the past ten years or so I’ve been working on this idea in my head (and down on “paper” well, really this screen) about the people who taught me woodworking and about others, like Dave, who were part of what I call my “Craft Genealogy.” My intention is for it to be a book, but it’s a long ways off.
Dave Sawyer, c. 1981 photo by Drew Langsner
Four people who were huge influences on me were Jennie Alexander, Drew Langsner, Daniel O’Hagan and Curtis Buchanan. Dave was close friends with all of them, and their stories are intertwined.
I worked most closely with Alexander and Langsner; in and out of their homes on a regular basis. When Jennie was getting older we often spoke of what would happen when she went to the “boneyard.” Among the concerns were what academics call her “papers.” These eventually went to Winterthur Museum’s research library, where I then began to sift through them, all the way back to about 1973 or 74. The pandemic interrupted that research – but I’ll pick it back up before too much longer.
PF JA Theo; photo Drew Langsner
I knew Alexander as well as anyone did. From time to time, I used to ask how she came to write her book back in the 1970s. “It was in the air” she used to say. “If I didn’t write it, someone else would.”
In the mid-1970s, Alexander was a very-part-time woodworker. A busy lawyer with a young family, she could only work her chair stuff on sporadic weekends and holidays here & there. Many of us begin that way, squeezing in our craft when real life allows us some hours here & there. She learned mostly by studying old chairs in museum collections and experimenting with the tools and materials. And asking questions of anyone who might know something.
J. Alexander, c. 1978
Through a couple different connections, JA was told of someone in New Hampshire who made chairs “the old way…” or something like that. And so, in 1976 Alexander wrote to Dave Sawyer and introduced himself and his chairs. And that connection pushed JA’s chairmaking further along than anything before.
So yes, chairmaking “was in the air” – but what I found out when I began studying JA’s letters is that it was in the air around Dave Sawyer.
Dave Sawyer at Country Workshops, early 1980s, photo by Drew Langsner
Unlike Alexander, Sawyer was a full-time craftsman, at that point, making wooden hay forks and ladderback chairs. So Alexander would fire off questions in the mail & Dave would send ideas and comments back and forth. Eventually they got together in New Hampshire and down in Baltimore. From that beginning, they became lifelong friends.
Dave Sawyer ladderback, mid-1970s
Sawyer’s first letter to JA notes: “I’ve made near 200 ladderback chairs, most 3-slat, most with hickory bark seats – using just the same methods you do (unless you turn your posts – I shave mine).”
Alexander did turn her posts at that time, but soon shifted to an all-shaved chair. A version of that story is recounted in the new version of Make a Chair from a Tree. I suspect Sawyer was an un-credited catalyst for that change in technique. After some back & forth, Sawyer got right to the point:
“I want you to come here next June for a couple of days – ride the train from Baltimore – I’ll meet you in Bellows Falls at 12:30 AM or whenever (can also meet buses in Charlestown or Claremont, or I suppose you could drive if you wanted to be so foolish.) We can do barking one day and I’ll show you anything you like about chairmaking too.” [PF emphasis]
In the early 1980s Dave, then in Vermont, shifted his attention from ladderback chairs to Windsor chairs, and those are what he became most known for. And his were the best Windsor chairs produced in this country.
Dave Sawyer chairs (from an auction results webpage)
When I learned Windsor chairmaking from Curtis Buchanan in 1987, he shared as much as he knew freely – because he said that’s what Dave did for him. Curtis has tweaked a lot of chair designs over 40 years but the DNA of many of his chairs is pure- Dave Sawyer. Curtis always tells the story of Dave saying to him that his “questions were getting too good – you have to just come up here and I’ll show you what to do…”
Curtis Buchanan’s 1987 class at Country Workshops, photo by Drew Langsner
I learned something from 1976 Dave Sawyer just a few years ago – the notch for splicing hickory bark seating. JA struggled with bark at first and Dave tried to sort it out for Alexander. In one of Dave’s letters he cut out a sample joint in paper & pinned it to the letter. 45 years later, I adopted it on the spot – Alexander never did, continued to tie knots in the bark seats throughout her career. Stubborn.
sample for joined hickory bark strips
I’m still gathering material for this history of how this particular green woodworking branch formed and grew. It doesn’t begin with Dave, nor does it end with him. But he’s a critical part of the story. His impact was huge – back when it was really just a few dozen people exploring working this way. He retired many years ago but his son George took over making “Sawyer Made” chairs several years back. So Dave’s designs and legacy will carry on. My goal with my Craft Genealogy project is to put these people’s stories together, to make sure we don’t lose track of who the people were who got us here.
Dave Sawyer at Country Workshops c. 1997, photo by Drew Langsner
When people watch me work, I mess up more. I work too fast. I skip important operations. I can’t concentrate.
All of which should make you wonder why I ever aspired to be a C-list woodworking celebrity.
When we bought our shop on Willard Street in 2015, I fell in love with the building’s enormous windows, which flood the front room with natural light. But what I didn’t fully realize when I signed the deed was that the windows work both ways.
As soon as I set up shop in the front room, passers-by paused to watch me work. On weekends, entire families would line up at the front windows, pointing and talking about what I was doing at that moment (which was mostly trying not to poop my pants – think Kegels, Chris).
In the morning, the sex workers on the first shift would peer into the window. They would stay to watch if I was working at the lathe. (Sex workers love turning – don’t let anyone tell you any different.) In the afternoon, kids from the elementary school down the block would stop at the window on their way home from school, probably to see if I had stabbed myself.
And at night, couples would swing by after dinner or drinks to see the mangy monkey (me) sweep up the mess.
The attention was unnerving for the first couple years. I thought about installing shutters I could close while I work to keep people’s eyes off me*.
Our bench room.
Then one day, I just got over it.
In fact, maybe my daily performances are a good thing for the craft. I’m not alone. If you start at Pike Street and walk down 9th Street, you’ll see upholsterers at work at 9th and Greer streets – Turner Upholstery. A sign and laser shop across the street – Grainwell – is incredibly busy churning out custom work and retail items. Next door to them is CVG Made, where Steve does a little bit of everything, from slabs to joinery to furniture and built-ins. Then there’s us – the hand-tool monkey show at 9th and Willard streets. And then a few doors down is Main Strasse Upholstery – another upholstery shop.
All this craft work is within one short block.
9th and Greer streets.
Maybe one of those kids walking home from Carlisle Elementary will pass through this corridor and see something that sticks in their head. A beautiful wing-back chair coming together at Turner’s. The wild plywood scraps that pile up outside the laser shop. Steve’s forklift. My weird chairs.
We are all a reminder that people still make stuff for a living. We are here every day, and we aren’t going anywhere. (Unless you want to see some turning out back – just kidding.)
— Christopher Schwarz
*We do have sun shades that we use to keep the early morning sun off the students and benches. But those don’t offer privacy.
After Nancy Hiller’s death on Monday and the outpouring of grief, tributes and love from her friends, family and fans, I didn’t know if there was anything left to say about this remarkable woman. But I am willing to find out.
First, what you must know is that everything you’ve already read is true. Nancy was a true trailblazer. And her work will continue as an inspiration for woodworkers in general, and women in particular, for years to come.
My relationship with Nancy was a little different than most people’s. I was a fan, of course. But we were also business partners on three of her books: “Making Things Work,” “Kitchen Think” and “Shop Tails.” And so I got to see how she thought about her place in the woodworking world, including places she didn’t want to go.
As we were finishing up the Lost Art Press edition of “Making Things Work” (she published it first under her own imprint), she said she wanted to change the book’s dust jacket. The edition she printed had a tasteful arrangement of hand tools on the cover. She told me it was an homage to Peter Korn’s book “Why We Make Things and Why it Matters.”
Korn, however, didn’t take the compliment in kind. And he told me at a Lie-Nielsen Toolworks event that Nancy should change her book’s cover.
For those who knew Nancy, this misunderstanding was typical of her complex mind. Even if Nancy was making a statement by comparing her book (and work) to Korn’s book (and work), it came from a place of deep respect. If she commented on your work, it was because it was good in some important way. Or it was strong enough to elicit a serious and well-considered reaction. (If your work was uninteresting, she would just be polite.)
Nancy’s attention was never binary (i.e. I like you, or I don’t). Instead, when she talked about woodworkers she disagreed with, her words were chosen with care. She could love your work or (fill in the blank here) but dislike your (fill in the blank here). And if Nancy liked you, she never let you forget that.
Naturally, someone this wildly intelligent and honest was intensely interesting to others.
For me, what was interesting was trying to piece together what she thought of herself. After we got to know one another, Nancy asked for a high-resolution scan of a French postcard I had published on the blog. It was a photo of Juliette Caron, the first female compagnon carpenter in France. Caron, born in 1882, was such an unusual sight that people would show up on job sites just to watch her work. And there was a series of postcards printed up that showed her working: carrying a wooden beam up a ladder, using an enormous auger and carrying a bisaiguë like a Jedi knight.
We don’t know what Caron thought of her fame. But when I look at the postcards of Caron that I own, I suspect she didn’t give a damn about it.
Nancy thanked me for the image of Caron, printed it out and framed it for her shop’s bathroom. I didn’t give it much thought until years later when we began discussing how to promote her books.
Nancy was traditionally trained as a woodworker in England and received City & Guilds certificates as a result of her training. This certification is helpful in getting a job in a workshop in the U.K. In the United States the certification is solid fried gold marketing fodder.
American readers *love* a woodworker with Old World bona fides. America never had much of an apprentice system for furniture makers, so most of us train informally or are self-taught. So when someone whips out formal certificates of this or that, those papers are almost more important than the person’s work at the bench.
Nancy refused – flatly – to build her career off her training. I repeatedly tried to get her to discuss it. Or allow us to use it when marketing her work. She would have none of it.
She wanted to be judged by her work.
And that’s when I made the connection between Nancy and Juliette.
As an editor, her attitude was frustrating because I thought we could sell more books. But you learned to be frustrated when working with Nancy. And you even came to enjoy it.
When you worked with Nancy, she would do anything and everything to ensure that she was doing her part in the relationship. When I designed her “Kitchen Think” book, I would send her chapters for review at odd hours. Sunday. Maybe at 2 a.m. Maybe three chapters in a day.
It’s how I work. I always get consumed by the project at hand, and I work until I drop. But I don’t expect authors to respond in kind.
Nancy was the only author who has ever kept up with my stupid pace. And, in the case of “Kitchen Think,” she just about wore me out with her detailed notes and suggestions about layout, color and the way I was processing the photos in the book.
Her work ethic was, especially at the end, heartbreaking.
Her book “Shop Tails” has been a slow seller. From the outset, I knew it would be. But I also knew it would be a brilliant work, and so we threw ourselves into the tumultuous editor/writer/designer/publisher storm to get the book done before cancer was done with her.
And we succeeded. But after the first sales numbers for the book came in, Nancy called me, unannounced.
“I think we should do ‘Shop Tails’ as an audio book.”
“Well, OK,” I replied. “I’ll look into finding someone who can read the book for the recording.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll read it.”
I put up a little bit of a fight. “You are finishing chemo for a deadly cancer. Are you sure?” But I knew I would lose the skirmish. She said she would start looking for a studio to do the recording. Or she would figure out how to do the recording at her house.
Within a week, Nancy was behind a microphone where she managed to record hours and hours of emotionally difficult (but hilarious) material. She even recorded a bonus chapter for the audio book.
Juliette making it look easy.
All this wasn’t for Nancy’s ego. It was because she didn’t want Lost Art Press to lose money on her book.
I told her the book would eventually make money. And anyway, that’s not why we published it. We published it because it’s a great book, and the work deserved it.
Nancy would have none of that. She wrote me an email saying she wanted to discuss some ideas she had for finding the book’s audience.
I told her to call anytime.
She didn’t call. And that’s because there was only one thing in this world that could stop her. And it got to her in the early hours of Aug. 29.
Though we all knew Nancy’s death was coming, it still feels like she was ripped from our lives mid-sentence. And that’s because she was.
I think this is how I will set our relationship down here on the table. Just me, waiting for her to call with her latest backbreaking but brilliant scheme to uphold her end of our work together.
I’ve kept her number in the contact list in my phone. Because honestly, if anyone could figure out how to make that call, it’s Nancy.
Despite having lived in Kentucky for 30 years, I’ve never visited the South Union Shaker Village in Logan County, Kentucky. I’ve driven past it more than 100 times – easy. But when Megan and I were headed to Nashville last week, I resolved to tap the brakes, turn off I-65 and visit the colony.
Like the other Shaker sites in Kentucky and Ohio, the South Union Shaker Village doesn’t receive the attention of the East Coast colonies. And that’s too bad. These western colonies are filled with gorgeous architecture and beautiful furniture.
All that remains of the South Union Village are a handful of buildings, but the site’s founders and conservators have managed to collect an impressive number of furniture pieces (especially firewood boxes) and display them in a restored environment.
If you are ever in Western Kentucky, you should definitely stop for a few hours to visit the village.
The trip reminded me that Megan had been working on a book about the Western Shakers (I’ve been helping with the photography) that came to a stop when the pandemic closed up all the museums and access to private collections. I hope this visit will help rekindle our efforts to shine a light on all the amazing Shaker furniture and buildings that have been mostly ignored by people in the wider world.
The short video shows some of the highlights from our visit.
