Lost Art Press

Since the summer months I’ve been sifting through every source I have to see if I have found a good idea for my next book, or just several thousand photos of furniture in neatly arranged folders on my laptop.

In some ways, I don’t really want to know the answer to the question.

Still, I keep amassing data from sources ranging from auction catalogs to the Early English Books Online (EEBO) data base. And after sorting through more than 10,000 images I think that things are coming into focus.

The thrust of the book is that there are several forms of furniture that haven’t changed significantly during the last 300 to 500 years. And those pieces of furniture, which show up repeatedly in the archaeological record, are the pieces of furniture that look simultaneously ancient and modern – depending on the context.

And that curious characteristic is important to people who want to make work that is divorced from style or fashion.

Today I stumbled on a great drawing that shows this idea fairly well. It’s of a trestle table – one of the 14 forms of “elemental” furniture I’ve identified. If you look at the drawing and ignore the style of the drawing – clearly early 20th century – you might just see what I see.

It’s a trestle table from the Tudor Renaissance – 1509-1603.

Or perhaps Lucy is slipping extra peyote into my coffee. Either way, it will be an interesting book.

— Christopher Schwarz

I’ve always been fascinated by work songs – generally A capella performances where the tempo governs (or is governed by) the pace of the labor. I first encountered these songs after high school while I was working on factory lines at liquor plants, table-making factories and a door-building facility.

These were sung, or sometimes hummed, in pace with the machinery. It is mesmerizing to participate in these songs, and that reverie is much needed when you spend 10 hours doing the same activity over and again. These songs are trance-inducing, like the hum of a beehive or the roar of an interstate.

Shakers were known for their work songs, which celebrated such mundane tasks as sweeping. And every since attending a performance of these Shaker work songs, I have yearned to write ones for woodworking.

Hand-tool woodworking has a rhythm that is absent in the roar of a planer or table saw. It is as regular as our hearts and our breathing.

Today as I was sawing up a bunch of red oak for a project, I tried to find a beat or a tune that corresponded with every stroke. I wanted something as transfixing as these work songs from 1966.

FolkStreams » Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison.

I’m not talented enough.

Perhaps we need to implore Tom Fidgen – a hand-tool woodworker and songwriter – to give it a stab. I know it’s possible.

Why? One of my most indelible memories from college is the day after U2 released the album “The Joshua Tree” in 1987. As I was walking through the food line that day the entire staff was singing “With or Without You” in full harmony.

It left me with chicken skin – like the FolkStreams film – that I cannot shake.

— Christopher Schwarz