The time came this weekend to divide up my parents’ cremains among the four children. After my dad died in 2018, I put his ashes in a campaign chest until we could decide what to do with them. Then my mother died unexpectedly in May, and I had two sizable boxes of ash to watch over.
The process is essentially like dispensing flour or (I suspect) selling narcotics. You scoop some out from the plastic bag and weigh it so we all get equal parts mom and dad. I wasn’t squeamish or emotional about the event. For me, at least, I carry my parents in my heart and genetic code. But I wanted some way to humanize this odd, plastic-bag process.
So I walked down to my workshop and quickly found my favorite wooden spoon, which was carved by Peter Follansbee.
My dad loved Peter’s work, and my mom always loved every wooden spoon that came into her kitchen. So it somehow seemed right.
The spoon is short, so it was easy to control its motion without shaking off the contents. The narrow neck up by the bowl was perfect for gripping it and keeping everything steady. It was like Peter had carved this spoon for this very operation.
I sealed up the eight bags and took the spoon back to the shop to be cleaned.
It still has a lot of life left in it. And some more joyful tasks ahead.
BALTIMORE DEMILUNE CARD TABLE (1988). Mahogany. 30″ high x 36″ wide x 36″ deep. (Photos courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
The following is excerpted from “The Difference Makers,” by Marc Adams, a collection of remarkable stories and work from 30 of the best furniture makers, toolmakers, luthiers, sculptors and more with whom Marc has worked since 1993 at his eponymous school.
Steve Latta makes contemporary and traditional furniture while teaching woodworking at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology and Millersville University in Lancaster County, Pa. He’s a contributing editor to Fine Woodworking magazine and has released several videos on inlay and furniture construction. He has lectured at Colonial Williamsburg, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts and Winterthur Museum, as well as numerous other schools and guilds. Working in conjunction with Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, he helped develop and market a set of contemporary inlay tools. Steve is an active member of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers and a juried member of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, in rural southeastern Pennsylvania, with their three children – Fletcher, Sarah and Grace – nearby.
WALNUT BOOKCASE (2002). Walnut. 50″ high x 30-1/2″ wide x 13″ deep. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
On the Professional Side In high school and all through college Steve worked in bicycle shops, eventually funding his tuition with his own repair business. After graduating, he continued fixing bicycles until the day he was offered a job making cabinets. “With bikes, you put the pieces in harmony,” he says. “With wood, you get to make the pieces.” That concept appealed to Steve and at the young age of 22, he made a career change. For the first eight years it was mostly on-the-job training. Steve did everything from cabinet making to trim carpentry before he landed in Kent, Ohio, where he worked for two companies: Western Reserve Furniture, as a shift foreman, and then on to a much smaller shop, Liberty Custom Furniture. It was during this time that Steve started to gain interest in making period furniture, which led him to move to the Philadelphia area in hopes of finding a shop looking for an apprentice.
FEDERAL END TABLE (2015). Walnut with inlays. 26″ high x 18″ wide x 17″ deep. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
“When this journey started, I realized that I liked small, high-quality shops that did not pull the punches,” he says. “So I would work for someone for a few years and when I had learned as much as that shop had to offer, I would move on to the next.”
In time, Steve became known for his skill at inlay and veneering, specifically in the Federal style. However, he has always considered himself more of a process guy than a production guy; he often enjoys the journey more than the destination. In his personal work, Steve is trying to break away from the mould of being a maker known for a specific style.
“With period work, the design is pretty much given and the emphasis is on interpretation,” he says. Today he is developing his own designs. On a trip to Ireland, Steve was moved by the geometric lines in many of the beautiful cathedrals and Celtic work. Inspired by these patterns he has moved to a new type of work involving a much freer style of inlay and a much broader view of “traditional” work. But Steve admits that he would love to have been a 17th- or 18th-century silversmith: “Their work just blows me away.”
FEDERAL SIDEBOARD (2011). Mahogany solids and veneers, maple and inlays. 40″ high x 62″ wide x 22″ deep. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
In all his success, Steve still considers one item to be his crowning achievement. It’s not that Lie-Nielsen has made a series of videos which feature him or sells his inlay tools. Nor is it the fact that writing for Fine Woodworking has made him a legend in woodworking circles. Today, if you were to ask Steve what he considers to be his greatest accomplishment, it would be teaching for the last 20 years at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. “My best work, outside of my family, is on display in shops and classrooms all across the country,” he says. “I am referring to my students who have graduated and work in the field and teach in the classroom.”
CHIPPENDALE MIRROR (2006). Quilted makore. 15″ wide x 27″ tall. (Photo courtesy of Fine Woodworking)
On the Personal Side There is an old saying that “those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.” That is not the case with Steve. He is a brilliantly talented craftsman and an even better teacher. To complete the package, he is a man of strong faith and dedicated to his family. Steve regularly volunteers his time to local organizations as well as international missionary work.
Steve was recommended by finishing expert Jeff Jewitt the summer of 2001. Although Steve had been woodworking most of his adult life, he was unknown nationally. So, I decided to take a pass, but I did keep his name on file. In 2003, Steve sent me an email to introduce himself, along with a résumé and photos of a few of his furniture pieces. His work showed stellar skill, but his résumé didn’t prove he could teach.
SPICE CHEST (1995). Walnut with inlay. 19″ high x 15″ wide x 10″ deep.
Through the years MASW has offered a class called “Decorative Details.” I knew what I wanted from such a workshop, but previous instructors missed the mark. Photos of Steve’s work showed remarkable string inlay, which would make for a perfect Decorative Details workshop. I asked, he accepted and the rest is history. In his very first class he was organized, articulate and his demonstrations were spot-on. Students loved him, as did my staff. And within a year or two he had become one of the largest draws at the school.
What makes Steve so good? It’s not the quality of workmanship or skill he possesses, nor is it his remarkable ability to make complex tasks simple. What makes Steve so good is his servant’s heart. In all my years, I have only met one other person like Steve, and that is Mitch Kohanek. The similarity between these two men is that they both have chosen not to make oodles of money in the private sector, which they could, but they dedicated their lives to the humble service of teaching. Both teach at community colleges with modest pay, long hours and often little recognition from within the systems they work for.
TEA BOX (2016). Walnut, cedar and spalted birch. 4-1/2″ high x 14″ wide x 9″ deep. “The wood for this box was salvaged from branches left after a storm at a local Quaker Meeting,” Steve says.
Each week MASW hosts an evening slide show where instructors show slides of their body of work. Steve could talk about his experiences as a contributing editor at Fine Woodworking. He could talk about the tools he developed or videos he did for Lie-Nielsen. He could talk about his leadership in SAPFM, TV show appearances or being a guest lecturer at Colonial Williamsburg.
Instead he prefers to focus on the work of his students. He talks about each person as a proud father talks about a child. Though it’s Steve’s moment to shine, he humbly turns the spotlight from himself to others. He finishes his presentation by saying that his great hope is that someday, one of his students will teach at MASW. Steve considers that will be his crowning achievement. I can’t wait for that to happen.
WALNUT BLANKET CHEST (2017). Walnut with inlay. 20″ high x 42″ wide x 24″ deep.
I am pleased to announce that “Make a Chair from a Tree – Third Edition” by Jennie Alexander is now available for purchase and is shipping immediately from our Indianapolis warehouse. The book is $37 plus shipping.
If you purchase the book before July 21, 2021, you will receive a free pdf of the book at checkout. After July 21, buying the book plus the pdf will cost $46.25.
The third edition of “Make a Chair from a Tree” is completely new. The text was rewritten by Jennie Alexander with the help of Larry Barrett before her death in 2018. Peter Follansbee then helped polish the text, photos and images. Many other people around the country contributed to the effort to bring this book back into print. Why go to so much trouble?
In 1978, the first edition of “Make a Chair from a Tree” kicked off an enormous surge of interest in green woodworking and chairmaking. Since that time, Jennie continued to refine the design of the chair shown in the book plus the processes to make it (steambending wasn’t covered in the first edition).
We hope that this all-new edition will inspire other woodworkers to pick up the craft and build this beautiful, lightweight and incredibly comfortable chair.
The new edition is the same quirky 9” x 9” trim size. But the manufacturing similarities end there. The new edition is full-color with sewn signatures and is hardbound.
We hope that many of our retailers will carry this title, but that is their decision, not ours. So a note to your favorite retailer might encourage them to carry the title.
For spelling, capitalization, usage, style, context, out of curiosity:
crinoline marqueters vs marquetarians Archimedes Dukes of Hazzard hindguts pseudopodia dammit vs damn it “is [read the book to find out] from Raising Arizona” Martin Löffelholz mushrooming magic marker wallered out cabal shagreen Kha’s tomb Esperanto boogering whoop-de-do tenterhooks Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area geegaw Liberace chapeau popliteal height vicar cwtsh Shmoo Gouda Old Testament charlatans Castile
I think that list is marketing gold in and of itself but I will add this, despite the fact that Chris hates praise (something he writes about in this book): “The Stick Chair Book,” which was created from a great wealth of research, intimate knowledge and years of experience, is every part of every definition of the word generous. And, it was a joy to read.
When I started making chairs, I wanted someone to hand me a list of tools and say: “Here. Buy these, and you’ll be on your way.”
The longer I made chairs, the more I understood why a list like that isn’t a good idea. There are too many tools out there and too many variables in how people like to work.
For example: I’m not a big drawknife guy. Ask me to recommend a drawknife, and I’ll give you a bewildered look. Ask Peter Galbert or Curtis Buchanan about drawknives, however, and you will get a master’s thesis on the tool.
Another problem is that suppliers are constantly changing. If I told you to buy a Harris Tools travisher, you’d spend months trying to hunt one up and spend some stupid money. Toolmakers come and go. Plus, they go through management changes – both good and bad.
The easy way out of this problem is to say: “Sorry, I can’t help. Do your own homework on tools.” But as someone who bought a lot of crappy chairmaking tools back in the day, I can’t do that to another person.
The following list is, I hope, a helpful medium. It’s a list of the suppliers I use and trust – plus the tools and supplies that I buy from them. These are the tools and supplies that I think are important to my success. If a type of tool isn’t listed – say, a scratch awl – that’s because I don’t think it really matters what kind of scratch awl you buy.
And because the marketplace is constantly changing, I didn’t want to print this list in “The Stick Chair Book.” Instead, I’ll issue a new list if new suppliers emerge or go out of business. This one is current as of June 2021.
