The scholarship is open to “women and those who identify as female both nationally and internationally and is part of the school’s ongoing efforts to increase diversification in the craft.”
The school and woodworking community worked together, raising more than $7,000 via a raffle. Prizes included handmade furniture, equipment and a deluxe copy of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture”. Proceeds from the raffle will fund seven week-long class scholarships.
• Name and date of the class you’d like to attend (plus two alternates if your first choice is not available)
• 100-150 word description of why you’d like to attend
If selected, your scholarship will cover the full tuition of the class and, when deemed appropriate, a small travel stipend. Apply now through January 30. Scholarships will be awarded via email between December 31 and February 28. Check out all the details here.
To learn more about the Florida School of Woodwork and its founder, Kate Swann, check out Nancy Hiller’s two-part interview series here.
With woodworking schools opening across the country, we are asked almost every day when we will resume classes here. Here’s the deal.
We plan to wait until there is a safe vaccine for COVID-19. There are several reasons for that decision.
Classes here can be physically strenuous because of the handwork. Students sweat, huff and puff a lot as they saw, plane and chop. Doing that work with a mask is misery, and the heavy breathing is ideal for spreading the virus.
Our workshop is compact. Keeping people at a safe distance is difficult, even with small classes.
Our students come from all over the world. Some of our students are older and therefore more vulnerable to the virus.
My mother and Lucy’s mom (both local) are both particularly vulnerable to the virus, and we see them several times a week.
If anyone got sick (or worse) at one of our classes, Megan Fitzpatrick and I would never forgive ourselves.
As soon as a vaccine is readily available, we will open our doors for classes and a long-overdue open day. If you want to be among the first people informed about classes, the best way is to subscribe to our blog. Simply enter your email in the box near the top right of this page by the headline: “Subscribe to the blog via email.” You won’t get spam. We don’t sell people’s addresses or have sponsors/advertisers. You’ll just get an email every time there is a new entry.
We look forward to having some new faces around here. I know Megan must be sick of me and my prattling on about chair design and marsupial trivia.
Until then, stay safe and we hope to see you soon.
I just finished up teaching seven days of classes at the Florida School of Woodwork in Tampa, Fla., an urban school in a rapidly gentrifying area of the city that has an excellent facility and an enthusiastic, knowledgeable and hard-working owner, Kate Swann.
The Florida School of Woodwork is officially about two years old, though Kate ran her professional furniture-making business there for many years along with Carl Johnson.
I’ve always thought that Florida – with 21 million residents – didn’t have its fair share of woodworking schools. Lost Art Press has thousands of customers in the state, and the blog receives significant traffic from the Sunshine State. We also get a lot of questions from beginning woodworkers in Florida who ask: Where should I go for instruction and community?
Now they have an answer.
The school is located in a renovated motor-winding plant just north of downtown Tampa and near the new and bustling Armature Works and blocks and blocks of renovated Craftsman bungalows.
The front bench room and machine room is illuminated by enormous storefront windows. Each student works at a Benchcrafted workbench and with a wall-mounted kit of hand tools. The machines are well-maintained and safe (SawStops). There’s a nice break room, an overflow machine room at the back and a covered area to eat your lunch back by the local meadery. Oh and the floor of the shop is a sprung wooden floor – it’s great for your back and knees.
And there’s Kate. Affable and hand-working, Kate spent the seven days making sure the students had everything they needed, built jigs for my class, greeted the curious who stopped by and kept each day running smoothly.
Also impressive is the programming. The classes run the gamut, from a one-day class where you turn your first cup to multi-week advanced seminars with Michael Fortune. Project classes span a wide variety of styles, from period pieces to Arts & Crafts, Mid-century Modern to pieces with a serious artistic bent.
About half of my 10 students were from Florida, with the rest from states as far as Iowa and Texas. Many out-of-staters brought their families – February in Florida is about as nice as it gets. Also interesting – many of the students were repeat customers, which is remarkable for a young school.
I’ll be returning to the Florida School of Woodwork to teach in 2022 (my 2021 is already overbooked). But don’t wait for me. Check out the complete list of upcoming classes here. Florida finally has the woodworking school it has long deserved.
All my classes at the Covington, Ky., storefront are full (I highly recommend you join the waitlist here – people’s lives can change dramatically in a moment). But I now have classes in Germany and Florida that have opened their registration for 2020.
All of these are classes that I’ve never taught before (always fun). Here are the details:
In this class we’ll make a reproduction of a Japanese sliding-lid box I measured while I was overseas. It’s a fun project to make. Though the joinery is simple – finger joints and steel dome-head nails – the real challenge is keeping all the details crisp and producing beautiful surfaces.
The Staked Worktable from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” is one of my favorite original designs. And I’m excited that Dictum has agreed to run this course. It’s a bit of a challenging project because of the sheer scale of the materials – large legs, large compound-angle mortises and some big sliding dovetails. The class takes place on the grounds of a beautiful monastery in Niederalteich, Germany.
This four-day class is a solid introduction to making contemporary chairs using traditional methods. We’ll get into basic steam-bending, compound-angle joinery, tapered mortise-and-tenon construction and saddling a seat. Because we are building a side chair (instead of a more involved armchair) the pace will be less brutal and we’ll be able to explore alternative methods throughout the week. The classroom is in the heart of Munich, right by a large train station with lots of places to eat and things to do. So bringing your family might be a good idea.
In the coming weeks, I hope to announce three more classes for 2020 – two in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. We are still working out the details, and then I’ll announce them here.
I’m teaching two classes at the Florida School of Woodwork in Tampa in February 2020. Registration began yesterday, and let me repeat the two most important words from my first sentence: Florida and February.
The Tampa school is relatively new and has been the location of Fine Woodworking’s Hands On events, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about the school and its facility. Here are some details on my classes.
We’ll be making the American Welsh Stick Chair that is featured in “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” It is a great introduction to chairmaking – no previous experience required. And the emphasis is on using mostly common woodworking tools and processes. No steam bending or green woodworking is required for this class.
In this class we’ll make a reproduction of a Japanese sliding-lid box I measured while I was overseas. It’s a fun project to make. Though the joinery is simple – finger joints and steel dome-head nails – the real challenge is keeping all the details crisp and producing beautiful surfaces.
I hope you will consider joining me. I don’t teach many classes these days, and I’ve never taught this far south.