This is an experiment. A fair number of readers have asked us to restock the full-size chair wooden templates for the Staked Armchair from “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” We carried these templates for a couple years and discontinued them after sales cratered.
The templates are $49 and come with six full-size laser-cut templates for making the four-stick Staked Armchair. Unlike our earlier templates, these are made from 1/8” Baltic birch so they will be more durable.
These templates are great for any beginning chairmaker. And many of the parts are compatible with the armchairs from “The Stick Chair Book.” The seat and arm shape is the same, as are the leg locations and stick locations. So the templates are a good place to start exploring chairmaking.
(FYI, we also carry full-size paper patterns for the five chairs in “The Stick Chair Book.” These need to be adhered to your own wood and cut out.)
The templates are laser cut in Ohio. If you want a set, don’t tarry. We might not stock these permanently.
Every day (and most nights) I am working on the first issue of The Stick Chair Journal, an annual publication that will expand the universe of sticks chairs. More history. More plans. More techniques. Reviews of tools. And Big Thoughts.
The writing, photography and design for the first issue is coming together nicely, and Issue No. 1 will be released in the fall.
Every week, I’ve been pitching my ideas to Megan over lunch. Two weeks ago, I laid out the design aspects of the Journal, plus some of the mechanical aspects (paper stock, cover stock, binding, trim size and the like). As a writer and an editor, I got quite excited about the way it would look.
Then I did what every good publisher should do. I got out my calculator and pencil and did a proper P&L (profit and loss statement) for the title.
Woodworking is a niche. The craft of chairmaking is a room inside that niche. And stick chairs are a cockroach hole in the baseboard of that room inside the niche. So now our plans are to print 3,000 copies of the first issue. If it sells out, we’ll sell pdfs of the first issue and consider increasing the press run for the second issue.
So I’ve had to make some changes. Instead of hiring an artist to draw the masthead for The Stick Chair Journal, I decided to construct it myself using fonts we already own. Same with the cover border – I can get about 95 percent of where I want to be by modifying some clip art we own. Instead of hiring a woodcut artist to make a cut of the chair featured in the issue, I’ll simulate that effect in Illustrator.
Oh, and my plans to commission a series of woodblock initial caps for our stories? I nixed that, too. So, tonight I am making our own custom woodblock initial caps – using wooden children’s blocks that I am modifying with gouges and engraving tools.
While all this might sound like I am retreating or giving up on my “dreams,” I feel the opposite. By doing this work myself, the first issue will become profitable if we sell only 1,000 copies. And that small fact ensures there will be issues Nos. 2 and 3.
When I was in journalism school we were encouraged (nay, forced) to enter our work in journalism contests. We were told that we’d never get a job without a long list of awards on our resumes.
Freaked to the bone, I did as I was told.
When I got my first newspaper job, I became skeptical of contests. Here’s why. When the newspaper’s publisher (the big, big boss) met me, he said: “I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I read your resume. Under ‘professional memberships’ you listed the Radio Shack Battery Club, and we couldn’t stop laughing. We had to interview you! Good job.”
Then, a few months later, I was asked to be a judge in a journalism contest. The editor dumped a dozen stories on my desk and said: “Read these before lunch and decide who wins first, second and third.” Yup, let a junior reporter with six months of professional experience decide who wins the award for best feature writing in Nebraska.
After that day, I never entered another professional contest again.
Maybe it’s my profound dislike of hierarchy, but I have never understood contests in the same way I don’t understand watching sports, running a marathon or rank-ordering anything. Ask me about my favorite band, movie or restaurant, and I’ll just stammer. I know I’m odd, but I cannot fathom making something first or last.
This is not because I’m some hippie slug. I am the most competitive person I know. I just don’t see the point in spending energy to compete in someone’s artificial framework. I’d rather make something – a book, a cabinet, a chair – and sell it. Teach someone to do something. Read a book. Fill the bird feeder.
So it should come as no surprise that I’ve never entered a furniture-making or design contest. I’ve judged a few, and that process reinforced my unease. Even when there is a panel of judges (which is ideal), there’s always one person who barks louder than everyone else and runs the show.
And I was flummoxed as to how to judge a piece of furniture for a “Best of Show” award. I’ve seen hundreds of flawless Windsor chairs and Issac Youngs clocks in my time. Shouldn’t all these win? They are perfect. And what do you do with well-designed and original pieces that have cosmetic flaws?
Sure, you can write rules and directions for judges that guide them on making decisions. But in the end, it’s too artificial and arbitrary for my taste.
So all this is to say that we are winning an award next week. We didn’t enter a contest; we were simply notified. Sure, I could refuse the award, but to me that takes as much ego as entering a contest. So I’m just going to smile, wave and be thankful that someone likes us.
Good news. The beautiful waxed cotton canvas holders for “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” are back in stock at Texas Heritage Woodworks. And they now come in two colors (blue and grey). Act quickly because they usually sell out fast.
I’m calling this a book report rather than a review, because I don’t have the gumption right now to write a proper formal review. So please forgive the relatively casual nature of what follows.
I love this book, which was recently published by Routledge. (I’m linking to the sales page at Amazon because the publisher’s ordering system has proven problematic. I am still waiting for the copy I ordered pre-publication.) The historical overview of women in woodworking is fascinating, including consideration of women picking up where men left off in wartime, and a wonderfully insightful discussion of the role played by the D.I.Y. movement in drawing women in. Earlier sections of the history include lots of information gleaned from research by Suzanne Ellison right here at Lost Art Press, a wonderful tribute to Ellison herself and to the Lost Art Press blog for publishing it. The international dimension is also noteworthy, though the book is overwhelmingly grounded in North America.
My favorite aspect of the book is the intellectual perspective that Deirde Visser brings to the subject, which she treats with welcome nuance. Many pages of my copy are covered with laudatory notes. I greatly appreciate that Visser and her colleague in the project early on, Laura Mays, saw fit to include not just art and studio furniture makers, but builders of custom work who happily refer to their workspaces as shops, and builders of buildings (albeit to a lesser extent).
The book is refreshingly free from top-down, supercilious attitude. Rather, its embrace of a diverse cross section of makers and making reflects beautifully on Visser herself. Kudos in particular to her and to the legendary Wendy Maruyana for including such gems as, “With characteristically self-effacing humor, Maruyama opened our conversation stating, ‘I’m not a great woodworker.’ She is talking about technique: ‘Making a perfect joint doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s quite a struggle, actually. So I frustrate myself because you always measure yourself up with other woodworkers and think ‘Oh fuck.’ In fact, Maruyama is perfectly capable of exemplary technique.” If you really want to invite people into a field, this is one way to do it.
It takes a strong spine to admit to imperfection in furniture making, and this in its own right is a welcome bit of iconoclasm. Furniture is made to be used, not just admired. In most cases the perfection of joinery or the attention given to finishing the back of a dresser or the underside of a table has far more to do with the maker’s conceit, or playing into widespread expectations of “quality” in the luxury furniture market (barf), than with actual durability or ability to serve the purpose for which a piece is made, which also has a bearing on who will be able to afford it. This, too, is for the underdog to point out, and women in this field have traditionally been underdogs.
I can’t imagine having to choose which makers to feature in such a project and am honestly baffled and gobsmacked to have found myself included. It’s a real honor. The sheer diversity of featured makers is admirable. So many others deserve to be included in a work of this kind, but as someone who has edited essay collections and copy edited Marc Adams’s “The Difference Makers,” I understand the need to make really tough decisions. That said, if there is one person whose absence is conspicuous in the discussion of particular women who have championed the cause of inviting women in and giving those women already in woodworking the visibility they deserve, it’s Megan Fitzpatrick, in particular during the years she worked as editor at Popular Woodworking; Megan has gone out on many a fragile limb, risking her own livelihood and fielding many an indignant comment from people who still don’t see the need to shine a light on members of specific underrepresented groups. Fitzpatrick would have fit perfectly into the part of the book that discusses efforts others have made in giving women woodworkers the recognition they’re due.
While this is by no means a formal review, I hope it’s clearly an appreciation and a strong recommendation. Thank you Deirdre Visser, Laura Mays and Phoebe Kuo, for conceiving this work. Looking back over the years in which I have been aware of this project, and the conversations I had early on about publishers with Mays, I recognize the massive investment of time and energy this book represents. I love it. What a joy!
