Recently I was corresponding with Narayan Nayar, my friend and collaborator on “Virtuoso,” about my crossing paths with an old family friend of his at a local chapter meeting of the Mid-west Tool Collectors Association, and what a small world it was sometimes. Narayan related, “I think I told you this story, but my dad – a guy with a formidable reputation himself – was traveling in Florence, Italy, last year or the year before and someone in his travel group approached him and asked him, ‘Are you related to the photographer of the Studley Tool Chest?’” That exchange confirmed for Mr. Nayar the path his son had chosen, and I can only imagine the swell of pride he had in knowing Narayan’s impressive successes.
That vignette brought to mind the tale of Lu-ban, the totemic figure in Chinese woodworking mythology. According to the tale recounted in a children’s book I have somewhere in my inventory, Lu-ban was a son of a farmer and the father was displeased when Lu-ban chose the path of becoming a temple carpenter rather than continuing in the tradition of working on the family farm. With a heavy heart his father bid farewell to Lu-ban, wondering if he would ever see his son again given that all the great temples were being built in faraway places. Decades passed with no word from Lu-ban, then one day a box arrived at the father’s farm house. The box was simple but exquisitely made, and inside the box was a single wide wood shaving, nearly transparent and many meters long. It was a simple message from Lu-ban saying, “Yes, Father, I am a success.”
I never recall that story without getting a lump in my throat.
The only place Peter Hardwick had where the tool cabinet could be displayed was inside his unused fireplace surround in the cottage parlor. Appropriately, the surround was some of Studley’s handiwork from the Quincy house. (Photo courtesy of Sandor Nagyszalanczy)
The Fan Frenzy Begins In the late 1980s Peter installed a new chimney in his home, and, in doing what guys do on such a momentous occasion, invited a friend over to show off his newly completed project. This friend, an insurance agent, saw the tool cabinet, recognized its special-ness and encouraged Peter to insure it. This event, Peter said, “Opened a can of worms!”
Peter tried to figure out exactly what it was that he had and how much to insure it for, and so he turned to FineWoodworking, the Smithsonian and an antiques appraiser for answers. At FineWoodworking magazine, Senior Editor Sandor Nagyszalanczy took the call and carries the memories vividly.
In early 1988, Nagyszalanczy made arrangements to go visit it during another scouting trip to Maine. When he opened the chest, it was, and I am quoting him, “Jaw dropping to floor!” He set up to take the photographs that eventually entered directly into our collective consciousnesses via the back cover of that magazine.
At that moment, Peter’s life of stewardship of the tool cabinet changed forever. In an age before e-mail, the result of that single back-cover image – and the ensuing posters – was an onslaught of actual “fan mail” for the tool cabinet that overwhelmed him. He received so much mail that he rented a dedicated post office box just for the unsolicited correspondence being forwarded to him by FineWoodworking. Peter’s only regret from this period was that he did not save the fan mail.
The Smithsonian One of the correspondents was the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Curator David Shayt. While on vacation, Shayt visited Peter and they struck up a fast friendship based initially on their mutual interest in the tool collection, but it soon evolved to reflect the fact that both men were affable and genuinely good guys.
At the time, Peter had a dilemma. He owned a family heirloom that was also a monumental piece of Americana, and he was concerned about its security and preservation in a simple Maine farmhouse. Shayt proposed a temporary solution. What if Peter loaned the tool cabinet to the Smithsonian for a 10-year period, during which the Smithsonian would bear all the responsibility for it? Once again, Peter reached an agreement to foster the care and preservation of a genuine national treasure, a theme that has touched him throughout his life.
While at the Institution the cabinet was conserved and exhaustively documented, and included in a small vignette adjacent to the exhibit “Engines of Change:The American Industrial Revolution 1790-1860,” with several other tool chests and cabinets for various trades. Though the larger exhibit lasted almost 20 years (late 1986 to mid-2006), the Studley tool cabinet was included for perhaps only a third of that time, probably from about 1992-1999. No doubt seen by thousands of woodworkers there, the Internet has numerous accounts of woodworkers who were captivated by it. I spoke recently with one visitor, a woodworker, who recalls it “being displayed a long way back from the glass, and in the dark.”
During the time of the Smithsonian possession, the collection was photographed and documented, and underwent a thorough cleaning and some conservation treatment, as well as being included in the small exhibit. Meanwhile, the torrent of fan mail kept coming, becoming even more of an avalanche with the issuing of the poster, then a FineWoodworking article, a second edition of a poster and finally a third. The maelstrom of mail led Peter to reconsider his continued ownership of the collection.
And it was one of those letters that again changed the course of the Studley tool cabinet’s history.
An intricate tool cabinet filled with woodworking tools has recently gone up for sale through the M.S. Rau Antiques company in New Orleans.
The cabinet bears some thematic similarity to the famed H.O. Studley tool cabinet in that it seeks to display a stunning array of woodworking tools in a visual, multi-layered composition. I’ve asked the antique dealer for some more information on the provenance of the cabinet, but until we have more information, all we have are these photographs and description to study.
Unlike the Studley cabinet, this collection appears to be more suited to a cabinetmaker than a piano maker or organ maker. This cabinet includes some joinery planes, turning tools, mortise chisels and other tools not included in the Studley cabinet.
The tools in this recently listed cabinet also appear more modern than Studley’s. The handsaw and several of the other tools are clearly of a much later vintage.
I’ll post more information and analysis as it becomes available.
At last year’s H. O. Studley exhibit in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I offered a limited edition art print of the H. O. Studley tool cabinet and workbench. Due to time constraints in the weeks prior to the exhibit, I was only able to produce 82 of the 100 prints in the edition. Those that were for sale sold out in two days, including the framed print I intended to use as a display piece then keep for myself.
This particular image does not appear in the book; the one we used on an opening spread features an empty tool cabinet and moodier lighting. I arranged the lighting for this particular photo with a yearbook or school photo in mind and refer to the image as the “yearbook photo.” I wanted an image that presented the ensemble elegantly but honestly, without drama — a portrait. When people see this print they usually describe it as “amazing” or “incredible” and though I agree wholeheartedly with those comments, the image evokes different feelings for me. This particular image usually makes me smile in the same way that school photos of my children make me smile. Perhaps because this was one of the last photographs we took in the four-year project of documenting these objects, and as such the image captures a period of time in the same way that the annual school photos do. But also because after working with the photo as much as I have in the last year, I revel in the tiniest of tiny details that I discovered when processing the image, like the grain of the workbench or the legible numbers on the wire gauge or the fact that if you look closely, you can see the felt we used underneath the cabinet to protect the workbench top.
Details such as these are present in the print because as an art print, this edition is as close to flawless as I can get. The photo was taken with a 37 megapixel camera rented specifically for special shots like the front cover and other images intended for large-format reproduction. The image file is 450 megabytes and has been painstakingly optimized for output on one of the finest archival art papers made, Hahnemühle Photo Rag — a 100 percent cotton paper with a weight of 308 gsm. My professional-grade printer uses 12 inks (normal presses use four), which produce an image with subtleties you’d never get on a printing press. And though my printer can produce about five of these prints in one hour, it can take 30 hours or more for a final product to be ready. I let each print rest at least 24 hours before checking it for scratches and printer errors. If all is well with the print, I proceed with hand numbering and signing (a process that has yielded many “artist’s proofs” — my hand can’t keep up with my brain and I end up botching the title or print number over and over), then spray the print with a protective spray which fixes the ink and makes the print a bit more abrasion-resistant. The print then dries for another few hours, after which it is placed in an archival plastic bag with some instructions for taking care of the print.
There are only 18 of these prints left in the edition, and I’m finishing up production work on them now. They will cost $100 each as they did at the exhibit, though for these last prints I’m including a large-diameter art tube and will ship them to you via FedEx at cost (domestic addresses only). If you are attending the LAP open house in Covington, Ky., in March, I’ll bring yours there to hand to you personally. Here’s how this is going to work:
Starting at 9 a.m. CST on Monday, Feb. 29, interested parties can send an email to studleyartprint@amoebr.io. In this email you should provide your full name and address (if you’re picking up your print in Covington, just type “Covington”). The reply address for your mail should be valid; if you have an email address you’d like me to use for a PayPal invoice, please specify that as well. No need to write a note or anything – just the above information is fine.
Don’t send an email beforehand; the email address won’t work until the time specified above. If you’re a friend who can contact me through other channels, I’d love to “hook you up” with a print but I won’t — I’d like everyone to have an equal chance at these last prints.
I will turn off the email address after I receive mails from 30 interested parties (if you send a mail and it bounces, ordering for the edition is closed).
The first 18 responders are guaranteed a print; everyone else will be on a waiting list in order of the timestamp on their email. If something doesn’t work out with any of those first 18, I’ll proceed down the list until all 18 prints are spoken for.
By 9 p.m. on the evening of Feb. 29th, I will send a PayPal invoice to your email address. You will have until 9 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2nd, to pay the invoice before your print is offered to the next person on the waiting list.
All prints that are being shipped will be shipped by March 9th.
Apologies if this seems like we’re exchanging classified information in a virtual parking garage. Really it’s just an email and timely follow through.
I’ll never say “never” but it’s unlikely I’ll be producing more art prints from the Virtuoso project — they simply take too much time to make and sell individually. Lost Art Press has found a means to fulfill poster orders easily (in case you’re wondering, the lack of reliable fulfillment is why this art print isn’t an official LAP offering) and we’re looking into ways to make other images from the image archive available on a more mass-produced product. So if you aren’t able to procure one of these extra-special art prints, maybe we’ll have something for your wall later this year. Feel free to contact me, though, if you are interested purchasing (entire) limited editions of other photographs of mine or if you have an interesting photographic project in mind.
I hope to never smell 100-year-old beer again. It’s nasty enough to turn you into a wine drinker.
This week we cranked up work on the new Lost Art Press building – trying to remove every layer of material that wasn’t original to the building.
We filled a dumpster with 30 cubic yards of debris – a bar built about 1995, an entire layer of studs and drywall that was attached to the original plaster and flooring. I’m going to have dreams about flooring. There was just so much of it: tile, cement board, a 1/4” subfloor, another layer of tile and then another subfloor. We kept going until we got to the layer above the joists.
We found doors and original windows beneath all the modernization – plus the stovepipe for the heating system, which will be perfect for a wood-burning stove.
Raney Nelson of Daed Toolworks sorted out the electrical – he removed the 1930s wiring and all the outlets tacked to the plaster. Megan Fitzpatrick of Popular Woodworking Magazine likes to destroy things. She’s quite good at it. She took down the stud walls and laid waste to the purple tile floor.
Woodworker Justin Leib and John (the other half of Lost Art Press) drove down from Indianapolis to wreck the CDX plywood bar with sledgehammers. Toolmaker Andrew Lunn helped on every phase of the project.
As we pulled the bar from its moorings and removed the flooring behind the bar, the nastiest beer smell filled the room. I love beer and I love wood. But when you soak wood with beer for a 100-year period, the result will make you gag. So don’t try it.
And when the space was clear, we put it to use. Photographer Narayan Nayar (he did “Virtuoso” and the photos that open the chapters of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”) helped the destruction and then stuck around to help with some photography for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.”
With any luck, the space will be habitable enough to show on March 11-12, 2016. That’s when the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event is coming to Braxton Brewing Co., which is right down the street from us. We’ll have a booth at the brewery, but we’ll also open up our storefront and have some sort of event. Details to follow as we get closer to March.
