When you think of American Arts & Crafts furniture, the names Stickley and Limbert are probably the first to spring to mind, but in my neck of the woods, I think Onken. Well, not really – but I do think immediately of the Cincinnati company he bought in 1904, The Shop of the Crafters.

Unlike the many shops of the turn of the 20th century that offered close copies of Stickley designs, The Shop of the Crafters incorporated German influences (not a surprise in Cincinnati, which had at least six German-language newspapers in the 19th century) and Hungarian influences, thanks to the lead designer, Pál Horti. Many of the designs incorporate inlay in contrasting woods and metal, which lends a touch of refinement.  Though some of it is, to my eye, a bit on the overwrought side, the marketing language of the 1906 catalog tells me I must be a philistine:

“The Crafter movement seeks to obliterate over-decoration, pur­poseless, meaningless designs and to install instead, a purity of style, which will express at once, beauty, durability and usefulness.

“Working in harmony with this idea Professor Paul Horti has introduced a touch of inlay work of colored woods or metal, that enlivens the strong simple lines of Mission furniture.

“Professor Horti’s dining room at the St. Louis Fair and his designs for the decoration of the Hungarian sections in the Palace of Fine Arts Building, Manufacturers’ Building and Mines and Metallurgy Building were so wholly delightful in their originality as to have exerted a far reaching influence on the general, crafts’ move­ment. His work with the Shop of the Crafters of Cincinnati has contributed to the distinction it enjoys for productions that are pure in style and of artistic beauty. Your attention is directed to the special pieces referred to, which you will find on the following pages.

“In fine cabinet work and finish the Shop of the Crafters particularly excels. The wood is selected church oak; the workmanship shows the highest skill and the true craftsman’s thought for durability and service. The different finishes are mellow and lovely, bringing out, not concealing the natural beauty of the wood.”

I do have a couple of Shop of the Crafters pieces on my “to build” list (including the Morris chair that Christopher Schwarz built in the June 2000 issues of Popular Woodworking – it’s the No. 413 shown at top).

There are several interesting online sources for more information, including:

• The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County offers a download of the company’s 1906 catalog

• The Hagely Museum and Library (Wilmington, Del.) offers a download of the company’s window and other store displays

• The Met offers a digitized catalog of the company’s 1912-13 Dining Room Furniture

There’s also a 2017 book, “Oscar Onken and The Shop of the Crafters at Cincinnati,” by M.J. McCracken and W. Michael McCracken, that shares the history of Onken and his designers, as well as catalogs, photos of the pieces and the entire first issue of The Lantern, a short-lived promotional magazine on the company and its philosophy (Chris wrote about it here).

And when it’s safe to travel again, plan a visit to Cincinnati, and save time for a few hours (at least) at the Cincinnati Art Museum, where there’s a good collection of Shop of the Crafters and other Cincinnati-made furniture.

— Fitz

 

 

If you are into chairs and history, make time very soon to watch this 90-minute film: “Chair Times: A History of Seating – From 1800 to Today.” The Vitra Design Museum is streaming it for free right now, and I don’t know how long that will last.

The film is a beautiful tour through a portion of Vitra’s historical collection of chairs, which spans more than 200 years of commercial production. The film, which is in German, French and English (with English subtitles), covers the work of many of the important designers and innovators – particularly in the 20th century.

Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman emeritus of Vitra, is the host, and he and his guests examine the chairs and discuss what is important or interesting about them (it’s like a very refined Chair Chat).

Many of these chairs are not to my taste at all. There is a lot of tubular steel and plastic that receives a lot of praise. But the enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the people in the film make it a joy to watch (even if you would stab an inflatable plastic chair to death just on principle).

Vitra produces many beautiful chairs. It also makes delightful miniature versions of historical chairs that are astonishing in their detail (I’ve seen several in person). These miniatures are used in the film and are also worth seeing.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Thanks to Matthew Johnson for the tip on the film.

A few weeks back, hand-tool woodworker, luthier, musicologist and performer Aaron Keim sent us a book and CD he and his wife, Nicole Keim, published to encourage people to learn and enjoy some work songs. Titled, “Let the Work I do Speak for Me,” the book (and CD) is a collection of 14 tunes (some traditional, others more contemporary) with a brief history of each song, the words, chords and tabs, plus links to tutorials.

Aaron plays the ukelele and banjo (and makes them), so many of the songs include the tabs and tuning for those instruments – but I pulled my Martin D1 out of the back of my closet to see if I could pick out a few tunes, and had no trouble (other than than the self-inflicted trouble of almost never practicing my guitar, and the resultant sore fingers).

It’s a fun project, and thanks to the hand lettering (by Nicole), it feels folksy and personal – as it should.

Check it out – and hear some of the Keim’s music – at quietamericanmusic.com.

And if you want to read a bit about work songs, check out this page at the Library of Congress.

— Fitz

 

I am not much of one for New Year’s Resolutions, preferring instead to periodically articulate attainable goals for the coming year rather than pie-in-the-sky wishes that will soon evaporate.  But this year I was adamant that the pseudo-albatross of “A Period Finishers Manual” would be on that list for the last time. Yes, it has simultaneously been a labor of love while being a weight on my neck for the past few years.

Last week was a momentous one here in the hinterlands: The first installment of the book was sent to the first group of reviewers for their critiques, feedback and guidance. These folks were selected as readers specifically because they were avowedly finishers of limited experience, and could tell me whether or not what I was writing made sense to them. They are the proxies for every woodworker who might eventually pick up the book.

As we began I gave them this charge:

“I wrote the entire manuscript for the Studley book in about six weeks averaging over a thousand words a day. I have been working on this one off-and-on for almost six years, happy sometimes with a couple hundred words at a time.  In the former case it was all I could do to wring out a manuscript from what I thought was a paucity of knowledge and yet it flowed like water from a firehose. I am having the exact opposite problem here, trying to cut it down to an easily readable yet beneficially instructive book, a determination you are charged with helping me to achieve.

“My tone is just the way I write, I want the reader to feel as though we are simply conversing.

“Further complicating things on my end is that I do not write in a linear fashion, never have and likely never will. I’m 65 with little desire for any fundamental changes in life. In other words I do not begin at The Beginning and conclude at The End. I write episodically, creating and working on vignettes throughout the manuscript as the spirit moves me (even true when I write fiction) then merging them and backfilling as necessary. It is a Billy Pilgrim sorta thing, I guess, or was it George Orr? That results in the current situation wherein the skeleton of the manuscript is complete but the connective tissues are being grafted in now. That is sometimes much more time consuming than creating the original mass of words.

“My current strategy is to get you the manuscript in a linear fashion, hence this first document is the Introduction, basically the mission statement of the book. Though not at all technical, it should give you some sort of roadmap about the journey we have begun together. Feel free with your comments and edits.”

From this point on, approximately every two weeks, another chapter of the manuscript will be sent to this naïvely valiant group of volunteers. I say “naïve” because by the time we are finished, they, too, will be glad to see it in the rear-view mirror of their lives.

Once a passage has passed from my hand to theirs and back, with the revisions integrated (I may or may not accept their suggestions, but the results thus far indicate we are all on the same page – all the suggestions have been excellent and useful), the sections will be passed on to the second group of reviewers. They are highly experienced finishers with decades of experience, which will allow them to comment on the workbench techniques and technical veracity of my verbiage.

At the moment the manuscript is nine chapters, although a couple of them are quite long-ish and may be subdivided.

It looks like I just might meet my goal of being able to move on to the next Roubo volume by Christmas.

— Don Williams