Katherine has just finished making another big batch of soft wax, and it’s available in her etsy store.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the Soft Wax Saga this fall and winter, she’s made some changes to her production and bottling process – upgrading the packaging and refining the recipe. Details are here.
Counting all the jars she’s sold at our storefront (and to me), Katherine has made and sold more than 1,000 jars since she started mixing the stuff in the basement in April 2016. When we began making the stuff, I helped her bottle every batch. Now she takes care of everything herself, except ordering some supplies where she needs a credit card.
So thanks to everyone who has supported her these last three years and your patience when things occasionally went wrong. Katherine’s learned a lot about dealing with adults because of this business and, of course, I’m happy to see her get a taste of financial independence.
One of the typesetting machines on display at the Gutenberg Museum.
While most woodworkers have built a basic bookcase, few have paused to consider the long, complicated and interesting relationship between the history of the book itself and the shelves, cases, stands and lecterns that hold it.
Unlike most furniture, which is designed to suit the human form, bookcases are based on the standard sizes of books, which just might be related to the size of a medieval sheep or calf (seriously).
Kieran Binnie and I have decided to plumb the intertwined history of the book and the casework that displays and protects it. This book, which we are calling “The Book Book,” will explore the origins of bookmaking and the allied development of bookcases, from the time when books were handwritten and chained to the furniture all the way up to the ubiquitous IKEA bookcase.
Along the way, Kieran and I will build some of the more interesting projects we dig up from the historical record. As of now, we have a list of a dozen projects for the book, but I’m sure that will change as our research progresses.
Kieran’s initial explorations have already turned up information about book production that – as a publisher – is quite shocking. Most publishers (me included) think the birth of large-scale book manufacturing occurred when the Chinese and Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type. That’s just not so.
There is lots of evidence that specialized book manufacturing was thriving for hundreds of years before Gutenberg – and not just for royals and the wealthy. And so our search for the earliest origins of the bookcase also will extend way before Gutenberg.
To be sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Kieran has completed his work on “The Life & Work of John Brown,” and the remainder of that book is in the hands of Christopher Williams. So Kieran has been diving deep into the historical record and is pulling me along for the ride.
As always, we’ll be sharing the stuff we learn here on the blog. In addition to the research and building, I’m looking forward to designing this book, which will likely resemble some of the early books I got to see on a tour of the Gutenberg museum in Mainz, Germany, in 2017. So expect lots of non-standard typography, layouts and even book structure.
— Christopher Schwarz and Kieran Binnie (visit his blog Over the Wireless)
Happy winner Bill Rainford with his pack horse William.
The winner of a Lost Art Press bandana (man scarf) and Chester Cornett button is ‘speed poet’ Bill Rainford. Within 46 minutes of the posting of the Caption Challenge Bill submitted a four-line poem capturing the pleasures and perils of living in a tree stump:
”There was a young couple who lived in a stump/They had so many children they clearly like to hump/With only one room and only one bed/They should grow an addition as that tree isn’t dead.”
There were 233 entries that arrived before the cut off and there are five that I have selected as Honor Mentions:
Bob Brown submitted, “Man leaves woman in trunk.” A nice murder-mystery vibe and another reminder to me to never buy a very large suitcase.
Samuel Holland submitted, “Why would I ask for a tree bedroom house? It makes no sense.” I like puns and this also reminds me of a guy I ran into once. He kept saying “tree” on the very tree-less waterfront in Jersey.
immltasbi submitted a very short short story that reminded me of Tom Bombadil from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’: “Let’s cut a tree, to make a home. A branch for spoons and other for the plates…”
Dave was the first to caption ala Chester Cornett: “wey make ur hows ahhom are heit cant B mad.”
Lastly, to award outstanding perseverance, an Honor Mention goes to J.C aka BLZeebub for contributing 14 entries. I want this person on my side in a fork fight.
I will contact the Honorable Mentionees and send you a small thank you for your efforts.
Thanks to all for participating and Happy New Year!
From the advice column “Work Friend” in The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2018
You Can’t Beat Them (You Will Be Arrested)
What are your thoughts on friends who leave high-paying jobs to pursue their creative dreams, then end up broke and complain about it?
— Brooklyn
Obviously, we must all tell them to shut up and get back to work on their canvases and scripts. I thank these folks every day for keeping me on the straight and narrow. As a chronic quitter, I’m the most likely to blow out of Dodge and suit up for a six-month bike trek down the Continental Divide or a nine-month woodworking apprenticeship, only to end up an incompetent waitron in Silver City, N.M. But now we have Instagram, and we can spy on our sad, failed basket-weavers together.
Time, though, will have the last laugh on all our choices. A great novelist is one who quit his job in time; a failed painter is just one who hasn’t died soon enough.
Christian Becksvoort, at the 2014 Lie-Nielsen Toolworks open house.
Just a reminder that you’re invited to Christian Becksvoort’s “Shaker Inspiration” book release party on Jan. 12, from 7-10 p.m. – plus he’ll be in and out during the Lost Art Press open house that day (10 a.m-5 p.m.).
Christian will give a presentation on his work and a short reading from his new book (and sign copies of it and his other books if you like); we’ll have snacks, beer and wine, and non-alcoholic beverage choices).
If you plan to attend the evening shindig, please send me an email at covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com to let me know how many are in your party (so we don’t run out of provisions).
