“1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not strictly necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share.
2. Never demand exact finish for its own sake, but only for a practical or noble end.
3. Never encourage copying or imitation of any kind, except for the preserving of great works.”
— John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1854)
For more thoughts on Ruskin and thoughts on furniture design, visit James Watriss’s blog.
Now that “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” on its way here, we have many readers asking about the other titles that are in the works here.
Before I do that, let me say that we don’t operate like a traditional publishing company with a publishing schedule. We don’t release a book until everyone – me, the author(s), the layout artist – are happy. So I might tell you a date that we hope to have a book complete, but it will always be a guess.
So with that said, here’s where some, but not all, of our projects are this morning.
“Mouldings in Practice” by Matt Bickford. This will be our next book this year. The book is written and edited. The photos are processed. The hundreds of illustrations are converted to a publishable format. We have a design template, and the designer, Linda Watts, is starting to put all the pieces together on the page. I hope to send this book to the printer by the end of March.
“To Make as Perfectly as Possible” by Don Williams. As many of you know, this project stalled temporarily when one member of the translation and review team had to tend to some important personal business. Things are moving forward again, and the goal is to have this book ready for Christmas. Don has a new blog entry ready on the project that I will post this week.
“By Hand & Eye” (tentative title) by Jim Tolpin and George Walker. Jim and George are hard at work on this book – I’ve been following their collaborative process in GoogleDocs. This book is due in my hands in June. We hope to have this ready for 2012 as well.
We have lots more projects in the works, including two books that I’m writing myself and several projects that I can’t even talk about for competitive reasons. One of these books has been in the works here in my living room for two years and involved a network of helpers here in the city. It should be big – literally – maybe a five-pounder.
Now I’ve got to get back to the shop. I have to finish that secretary in less than two weeks. If I don’t respond to your e-mails quickly, that’s why.
— Christopher Schwarz
“Combining style, materials, and technology in a desirable product at a price the market will accept has always been the basic problem facing furniture makers. Since costs are, in part, dependent on the labor intensity of their technologies, manufacturers must design pieces with the capabilities of their tools in mind, constantly compromising between cost and style. This system of give and take is the economic interface between technology and style. It is the economics of design.”
— Michael J. Ettema, “Technological Innovation and Design Economics in Furniture Manufacture,” Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 16, 1981. (Special thanks to Don Williams for pointing me to this article.)
“Furniture which is strictly useful, should be of good quality; strength and durability being generally the chief points to be regarded… it is therefore little affected by fashion, whereas the style of drawing room furniture is almost as changeable as fashion in female dress.”
— Mrs. William Parkes “Domestic Duties” (London, 1825)
“Your stuff tends to look like other people’s stuff because you have the same machines.”
— Jim Tolpin, Woodworking in America, 2009