Category: Yellow Pine Journalism

If you want a good critique to help you grow as a designer (or a writer) here’s something to consider: Ask for the criticism before you touch the tools (or crank up the printing press).

Because of my odd path through life, almost all of my early furniture designs were vetted, savaged and usually improved by a group of experienced woodworkers before I started the construction process. For 15 years, all of the editors at Popular Woodworking would gather occasionally around a table to plan out future issues of the magazine. We would review proposals from outside authors and we would present our own designs for review.

The short critiques sounded like this: “That rail is too heavy. You don’t have enough meat in that joint. That overhang looks clunky. You might consider adding a sympathetic curve here. It needs a cup holder. If you tapered the legs it would look a lot lighter.”

Everyone had to go through the process, even the boss who went to a fancy furniture school.

This sort of pre-construction critique is so helpful, that I seek it out even now. Before I build a new chair or cabinet design I like to show my drawings to someone who knows their stuff and isn’t afraid to speak up.

I don’t act on every piece of criticism, but it always makes me think. And sometimes it pushes me down a new path.

On the other hand, criticism that comes after a piece is built is a different animal. With pointy fangs.

I’ve spoken to woodworking clubs all over the country. Many times they invite me to critique pieces made by their members. The first time I was asked to do this, I thought: “What a brave bunch of woodworkers.”

Then the club’s president took me aside and said: “Please be nice about it. One speaker was so mean that a couple of the guys ended up in tears.”

I empathize with this approach. Most of the members of a club are there to have a good time, learn about woodworking and help their community. They aren’t looking for a withering critique that will thicken their skin and question their choices as a designer. And so when I critique a finished piece I focus on what they did right and (I hope) encourage them to keep building.

Another Way to Do It

What if you don’t have any friends who are experienced designers? One thing you might try is to get a few friends together and have something like our “Chair Chats” (we have two more publishing real soon). During each chat, Rudy Everts, Klaus Skrudland and I dissect the design of a few chairs. Because these are historical pieces, we are free to be as honest as possible.

What has been amazing to me is to see these pieces through the eyes of someone else I respect. We all pick up on different aspects of a piece. And by the time we completely take apart a chair verbally, I find that I understand the piece much better than I did before. 

We do it via a texting program (Whatsapp) so that everyone’s opinions are heard. No one can talk over the others and dominate the discussion. It doesn’t take a lot of time, either. We spend about 30 to 40 minutes on a chair. And at the end of each critique I feel oddly refreshed, energized and full of ideas.

And that’s the best feeling ever for a designer.

— Christopher Schwarz

At Popular Woodworking, we begged readers to send us submissions for the magazine’s last-page essay called “End Grain.” The problem was that almost all the essays we received had the same theme. It was such a problem that the theme became its own compound adjective.

Me: So what’s the essay about?

Fellow editor: It’s another grandpa-was-a-woodworker-so-now-I-am-too piece.

To be fair, my grandfather on my mother’s side truly was an accomplished woodworker. He taught me quite a bit about the craft and inspired me to be a woodworker. So I am in the sizable cohort that I appear to be mocking (though I am not).

Instead, I want to call attention to a fact we sometimes forget. Here it is: We are not clones.

When I write about the woodworking I did as a kid, it’s easy to focus on – duh – the woodworking parts. My grandfather was an enthusiastic woodworker, and I spent many hours in his Connecticut shop making things. My father was also a woodworker and a carpenter and a mason and a talented photographer (and 100 other things). And it’s easy to explain my interest in the craft through those two people.

But that’s just shorthand. And it’s incomplete.

As my father got older, his patience for work in the craft grew veneer thin. When he was younger, he would spend months laying hundreds of bricks by himself (sometimes with the help of my mother) as he started beautifying our first home in Arkansas. After he designed the two houses for our farm, he spent most weekends there (dragging us along whenever possible). These houses took more than a decade to construct. But despite the overwhelming task, he moved forward every week, joist by stud.

Once in his 60s, however, he confessed to me that he’d lost the drive to take on big projects. He was still interested in making things. But he wanted things to be quick. He wanted to learn to turn. And to carve small objects. Up until the end, his hand skills and his mental acuity never wavered. When he did pick up the tools, it was humbling to watch. But it was more difficult for him to ignite that spark. And to keep it going.

I think about that a lot. I have now entered my 50s, and I still want nothing more than to build things day in and day out. For years I worried that I would turn into my father and lose the ember that’s necessary to tackle difficult furniture pieces. 

Luckily, I am not a clone. I am also the product of my mother.

My mother, now in her 70s, is as active and entrepreneurial as she was in her 20s or 30s. As a kid, I watched her teach natural childbirth in our traditional (some might say backwards) Arkansas town. She started a restaurant there, and then she worked at restaurants and catering businesses all over the country (Dallas, Santa Fe, Connecticut, Little Rock). Today, she still runs a catering business from her house and cooks every week as a volunteer at our local shelter. And she still embraces new technology (we’re both exploring the world of cooking with sous vide and an Instant Pot these days) and new ways of working. 

She has had a more tumultuous life than my father, especially after they broke up. But she doesn’t give up. And she always finds a way to make things work, whether that’s throwing together a great meal with scraps or starting her life over in a new city.

So while it might look like Lost Art Press and my love for woodworking is the direct result of my time in the workshop with my grandfather and father, that’s not quite right. It’s my mother’s influence that gave me the strength to give the finger to my corporate job. And in the 1990s when I failed at my first publishing business, it was my mother’s genes that gave me the strength to say: Hell yes, let’s do this again and start Lost Art Press with my business partner, John.

And it’s also her genes that likely will keep me going. 

As I get older, my patience for woodworking has only increased. I am still interested in learning new (and sometimes very old) techniques. And John and I have a business – publishing high-quality woodworking books – that is as ridiculous on paper as running a restaurant or a catering business. But we make it work. 

So while grandfather might have been a woodworker, it’s important to also remember this: Mama was an entrepreneur.

— Christopher Schwarz

Editor’s note: Nancy Hiller’s “Little Acorns” will return soon. She’s working on a big one now.