James Krenov presents his “Oak Parquetry” cabinet from 1997 to the class at The College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program (now The Krenov School). Photo by David Welter.
The process of writing “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints” has left me with a few qualifications: I’m happy to sit before an audience and talk about his roots and aesthetic history, or work with The Krenov Foundation to design and present a centennial exhibition (more on that in a bit). But, a question that I get asked frequently that I don’t feel 100 percent qualified to answer is: which is your favorite piece of James Krenov’s?
It’s a hard question, perhaps made complicated by my years of research – I could’ve rattled off a favorite cabinet or two with ease before I knew his full body of work. Furthermore, divorcing his life from his work is impossible. There are pieces I love because of their context, but are not his most technical or aesthetically pleasing works. And, frankly, this question asks my opinion, which I’ve tried not to exercise too much during the journalistic pursuit of writing his biography! But, I thought I’d share three pieces here that, after all my work, I find particularly appealing.
All of these pieces, and a couple dozen more, can be found in the gallery of Krenov’s work at the back of biography. And, if you want to join in the game of browsing his work and picking favorites, you can find a huge body of his work on The Krenov Archive, and share them in the comments below!
Cabinet of Andaman Padauk (1979)
1979’s “Cabinet of Andaman Padauk,” pictured in Krenov’s fourth book, “Worker in Wood,” pages 16-23. Photo by Bengt Carlén.
If you held my feet to the fire and asked me what I thought best summarized Krenov’s technical and aesthetic body of work, it would be this cabinet. Made in Andaman padauk, a wood that Krenov spent many words praising, with drawer-fronts of pearwood and Lebanon cedar drawer interiors, this piece’s form, wood composition and technical execution put it high on a list of “classic Krenovian” cabinets.
The graceful curves are emblematic of Krenov’s work toward the end of his time in Sweden, as are the floating door panels, which lift nicely away from the frame in which they’re suspended. The cove between the stand and cabinet carcase is nicely faceted, showing his penchant for gouge and knife carving. And, his use of the lighter padauk in the panels, which came from the same planks as the darker surrounding padauk used in the stand and carcase body, is a deft illustration of his careful choice of woods. If I were assigning a county-fair-esque superlative, this might come in at “Best Overall.”
Lower curved details of the padauk cabinet’s stand. Photo by Bengt Carlén.
The pearwood drawer drawer fronts and curved panel of the padauk cabinet. Photo by Bengt Carlén.
Fossil Cabinet (1993)
Krenov’s “Fossil Cabinet” in kwila, spalted olive and hickory from 1993. Photo by David Welter.
If the “Cabinet of Andaman Padauk” is “Best Overall,” this cabinet might be something like the dark horse of Krenov’s oeuvre. Made in 1993, a dozen years after his resettlement from Sweden to the school in California, this piece came in the midst of a flurry of cabinets that played with parquetry and veneer composition. Its unusual use of spalted olive veneers, inlaid into the veneered kwila carcase, make it singular in Krenov’s output. Throughout the 1990s, in his 70s, Krenov played with new ideas and forms, a fact that is missed by many historians, who consider his work to be relatively unchanged over his career.
Aside from the fact of its unique place among his work, this cabinet is also attractive in its proportions and shaping. By 2000, Krenov would focus his work almost entirely on small cabinets on tall, leggy stands, and this piece foreshadows that trend. The shaping in the stand is also quite appealing, and hearkens to the first joined stands Krenov made in the 1960s for his “Silver Chests.”
The interior of the “Fossil Cabinet,” showing the simple interior. Photo by David Welter.
Pearwood Drawer Cabinet (2002)
Krenov’s “Pearwood Drawer Cabinet” from 2002. Photo by David Welter.
This is the only piece of the three shown here that I’ve seen in person; in fact, it was the first piece of his I ever saw in the flesh, when David Welter (its owner and the long-time shop technician at The Krenov School) brought it to the school when I was a student. It’s graceful in just about every way; the carcase veneers are carefully arranged, without being loudly bookmatched or otherwise worried over, the legs sweep gracefully and the interior is full of asymmetric and sweetly pillowed drawer fronts.
This was the last piece Krenov made at the school; at the end of the school’s 20th year, Krenov retired at the age of 81. Not only is the cabinet impressive considering the maker was in his eighth decade, it shows his continuing evolution as a maker. Welter was quick to point out that the legs, albeit joined and arranged in a typical fashion to many of Krenov’s later cabinets, feature a shaping profile and style that was new to Krenov’s work.
The pearwood drawer cabinet’s interior, showing the asymmetric drawers and their satisfying pillowing. Photo by David Welter.
The legs of the pearwood drawer cabinet, showing the sweet shaping that was new to Krenov’s body of work. Photo by David Welter.
Before I sign off, I want to mention something that I’ll go into greater detail on next week. During the past three months, I’ve worked with Michelle Frederick, Kerry Marshall and Laura Mays in Fort Bragg, Calif., on an exhibition celebrating Krenov’s centennial, which is this coming Halloween. They’ve begun releasing short teaser videos that hint at the videos we’ve made for the exhibition on this Instagram feed. Next week, I’ll put up a post with insight into our process and what you can expect when the exhibition goes live on Oct. 31. But if you want to start getting excited, I encourage you to check out their Instagram.
A twisted Ligustrum sinense. This Chinese privet has the status of a Champion Tree in the U.K. It’s found at Thorp Perrow Arboretum, Bedale, North Yorkshire, and gained its Champion status through being the tallest and largest specimen in the country. In addition to these characteristics its status as a champion is surely derived from its most notable feature being the remarkably twisted trunk thought to be caused by a systemic fault.
I first learned about the Twin Oaks Community while working on “Cut & Dried” with Richard Jones. We needed an index. Members of Twin Oaks, an intentional community in rural central Virginia, make their living, in part, by indexing books. Additional income is generated by making hammocks and furniture and tofu, and seed growing. The Twin Oaks Community, comprised of about 90 adults and 15 children, are income-sharing. Members complete about 42 hours of business and domestic work a week, and in return receive housing, food, healthcare and personal spending money.
Rachel Nishan from Twin Oaks responded to my indexing query, and we agreed to work together. Indexing a technical book such as “Cut & Dried” is a rather monumental task, and just thinking about it made my eye twitch. Yet Rachel approached the project without an air of stress, asking detailed questions about tree types, specificity and British spellings. Throughout our correspondence one sentence has stayed with me, years later: “… a more technically-inclined reader could want to look through the index in a variety of different ways, so I have tried to be pretty redundant, which is the kindest for the user of the index.”
“Kindest for the user.” I think that’s the heart of bookmaking, no?
Richard and I sent hundreds of emails to each other while working together to turn his years of work into book form. And all of that correspondence, from image selection to epsilon size, was written with Rachel’s not-yet-said phrase in mind: kindest for the user.
I was nervous to begin work on this book. Honestly, I thought the content would be too technical for me to understand. But then I read it. And realized Richard used his genius to transform his scholarly work into easy reading. And Rachel made topics within the text easy to find. And Meghan designed the book to be easy on the eyes. All with kindness in mind.
Many woodworkers are initially reluctant to study trees in detail fearing the subject is dauntingly heavy. Whilst it’s true the subject can be studied with scientific precision it’s really only necessary to get to grips with the main elements to gain a firm basic knowledge. Wood isn’t created with the needs of the woodworker in mind. The creation of wood is necessary for trees’ survival. We simply use what nature provides. Understanding the original function of wood helps woodworkers use it sympathetically and successfully. One example of useful basic knowledge described earlier is to understand the essentials of Latin scientific classification resulting in precision and clarity in any discussion of the subject.
All trees are members of the plant family. Specifically, they are all spermatophytes meaning they are seed-bearing plants. Trees are generally characterised as being perennial seed-bearing vascular woody plants with a root system and (ordinarily) a single trunk supporting a crown of leaf-bearing branches. With exceptions (see mention of the Arctic willow, Salix arctica, earlier) they normally reach a minimum height at maturity of five m (15′) and survive for at least three years.
This basic classification then breaks trees down into two distinctive types – the angiosperms (covered seeds) and the gymnosperms (naked seeds). Alternative names for these two groups are hardwoods, deciduous or broad-leaved trees (angiosperms), and conifers or softwoods (gymnosperms). The terms hardwood and softwood can be misleading as not all hardwoods produce hard wood, e.g., soft balsa wood is the product of a hardwood tree whereas yew is hard and comes from a softwood tree.
Figure 3.1. Trees increase girth by adding growth rings annually. They increase in height by adding new growth at the tips of branches. Roots and root tips grow in the same manner.
Typical of deciduous trees in temperate climates is the loss of leaves during autumn as the tree loses vitality followed by a dormant winter period. As usual there are exceptions where many of the hollies (Ilex spp.) retain their spiky and waxy leaves throughout the year. Spring, with its longer daylight hours and warmer weather, heralds a new period of rapid growth with the emergence of new leaves, flowering and reproduction. This is not true of all hardwoods in all climates. Many equatorial living hardwoods are able to grow all year round and may never lose their leaves en masse. With these trees the cycle is continuous as old leaves reach the end of their useful life to be replaced by new ones.
Figure 3.2 . Dendritic (deliquescent) growth pattern of broad-leaved trees. The main trunk branches and rebranches.Figure 3.3. Excurrent form of coniferous Japanese larch. A single bole or trunk with subordinate branching. Larch is an exception to the rule because it loses its needles in winter. In this managed forest, juvenile Sitka spruce have established themselves between the planted larches. Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire, England.
Angiosperms (deciduous trees) from all climatic conditions have a characteristic growth pattern. Their form is deliquescent or dendritic, meaning there is branching and re-branching of a main trunk.
Gymnosperms (coniferous or evergreen) trees typically retain their leaves throughout the year, with larch being one exception to this trait. Their form is generally excurrent – the main trunk rises singly with lesser sideways branching. Broadleaved trees usually have large, relatively fragile, blade-like leaves and, to prevent dehydration of the tree resulting from their retention, they are lost before winter. Conifers on the other hand typically are able to resist dehydration because of their tough, needle-like waxy leaves, which stay on the tree through all the seasons. As with tropical hardwoods discussed earlier they lose leaves and replace them all year round. However, I’ve noticed even the much-despised fast growing leylandii (Cupressocyparis x leylandii) planted in my back garden by a previous owner loses more leaves in the winter than in the summer. Leylandii are, in truth, a very attractive tree grown where they have space. They grow very swiftly and are really too large in small British gardens – they rapidly exclude light and dominate these small spaces.
Figure 3.4. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Needles (leaves) and seed cone. In common with broad-leaved trees conifers can be identified by a combination of factors – general form, bark, flowers, seeds and leaves. Scots pine needles, for example, occur in pairs, are bluish-green, twisted and about 50 mm (2″) long. They survive about four years before turning brown and dropping as a pair. Cones vary in size between 25 mm to 60 mm (1″ to 2-1/2″) in length and are usually rounded. The bark is distinctive being orange and flaky.
In common with hardwood trees living in cool temperate climates, evergreens have a dormant winter period.
Tree growth occurs in just three places. The first two are the tips of the branches and roots, which increases the tree’s height and the spread of the crown along with the range of the roots. The third place where growth occurs is in the girth of the trunk, branches and roots by the addition of an annual growth ring. Meristem or meristematic tissue refers to the growth tissue in trees. The growing tips of twigs and roots is the apical meristem. The lateral meristem is the cambium layer adding girth to the tree’s structure.
The cells produced by meristematic tissue, whether they are leaves, flowers, bark or wood, are largely of cellulose. Cellulose forms strong and stable long chain molecular structures. This, along with the lignin bonded with, or to it, is what gives wood its strength. Lignin is the “glue” holding wood together and is a complex mixture of polymers of phenolic acids. Lignin forms about 25 percent of wood’s composition and becomes elastic when heated. It is lignin’s flexible plastic property allowing wood cells to rearrange themselves that woodworkers use to their advantage during steam-bending wood into new shapes.
The majority of cells making up a tree’s structure are elongated longitudinal cells. Their long axis runs vertically up the trunk (and along the branches and roots). Some of these cells are short and stumpy and others are long and slender. The vascular function of the newly formed longitudinal cells is to conduct liquid raw essentials up the tree to the leaves and processed sugary food down the tree to nourish it. Spread through the wood are rays or medullary rays. These ray cells are also elongated but their long axis radiates from the centre of the tree toward the bark. They are stacked one upon the other throughout the length of the trunk in slender wavy bands.
In many wood species the rays are invisible to the naked eye but in others, such as numerous oaks and maples, they are usually highly visible because the groups of cells are large. Some ray cells – the parenchyma – store carbohydrates for use in cell development. The other primary purpose of the medullary rays is to transport nourishing sap toward the centre of the tree.
3.1 Log Cross Section From the outside there is the outer bark (see figure 3.6), which is a protective insulating layer against weather, animal, fungal and insect attack. The bark has millions of tiny pores called lenticels through which necessary oxygen passes into the inner living cells beneath. In polluted atmospheres such as cities the lenticels clog with dirt. London plane (Platanus x hispanica) is well suited to city life because it sheds its bark regularly, exposing clear lenticels. The bark of all trees flakes off as the girth gets bigger.
Figure 3.5. Medullary rays in European oak. On the left they are visible as light-coloured flaky patches – the sought-after quartersawn oak figuring or “silver grain.” To the right where the horizontal bands of end grain show the rays are visible as thin, light-coloured vertical lines. The centre of the living tree in this example is toward the bottom of the photograph.
Inside the outer bark is phloem, bast or inner bark. The phloem is produced by the cambium layer and is a soft spongy liquid-conducting vascular tissue that carries processed food – sugary sap – from the leaves to the rest of the tree.
Figure 3.6. End section view of small yew log. Identifying the most significant structures visible to the naked eye.
Beneath this layer is cambium – the lateral meristem (growing tissue) that adds girth to the tree. The cambium is a slimy layer only one cell thick. These cells divide constantly when the tree is active. The cambium produces not only phloem towards the outside but, towards the centre, it produces xylem.
Xylem has two major functions. As sapwood it conducts water and minerals from the roots to the leaves. Sapwood contains both live tissue and dead tissue. Dead xylem, the heartwood, is the trees’ structural support. The longitudinal cells described earlier are organised to form water- and nutrient-conducting tracheids in gymnosperms or conifers, although some hardwoods also contain tracheids. In angiosperms (broad-leaved trees) the order is different. Vessels, which are continuous tubular structures, form a pipeline from the root tips to the leaves rather akin to drinking straws bundled and glued together. (Note, though, the comment I made about some hardwoods also containing tracheids.) In oaks, for example (see figure 3.7), the naked eye easily picks out the initial spring-laid vessels or pores. In other tree types magnification is required. Sapwood is often attacked by food-seeking life forms such as fungi, insect and animal life.
As sapwood xylem ages it loses its vitality through the loss of the living protoplasm within the cells and turns into heartwood. In some species the transition between living xylem and heartwood is abrupt and clearly visible as seen in the yew cross section at left. With others it is hard to distinguish between sapwood and heartwood. The sapwood can remain as living protoplasmic cells for several years but this period varies from species to species, and even within trees of the same species. The yew sample at left shows newly laid sapwood that took about 8 or 12 years to convert to heartwood.
Figure 3.7. Close-up of European oak end grain showing light-coloured medullary rays and spongy, adsorbent, open-pored spring growth and denser less-porous late growth – European oak is a ring-porous hardwood.
Heartwood is the column of xylem supporting the tree. It is dead because it has lost its active protoplasm. Whilst outer layers of the tree are intact – protecting the heartwood nourished by foodstuffs transported to it by the medullary rays – it will not decay. Heartwood is usually, but not always, distinct in colour from sapwood. Extractives cause the colour change. Extractives are trace elements imparting various combinations of characteristics to heartwood, such as colour, fungal- and bacterial-resistance, reduced permeability of the wood tissue, additional density of heartwood, and abrasive deposits.
Tyloses are bubble-like structures that develop in the tubular vessels of many hardwoods during the changeover from sapwood to heartwood. Tyloses block the previously open vessels, preventing free movement of liquid. Red oaks form very few tyloses whereas white oaks produce many and this explains why white oaks are preferred for barrels. It’s possible to blow through a stick of red oak submerged in water and create bubbles. Whisky distillers are well aware of the “Angels’ Share,” which is the part of the spirit, usually about 2 percent, that evaporates through the wood of the oak barrel (Whisky Magazine, 2008).
Growth rings are the result of the cambium layer adding new tissue year upon year. The cambium layer (in temperate climates) becomes active in spring, reacting to chemical signals produced in the tree brought about by warming temperatures and longer daylight hours. During its active period the cambium layer adds open, fast-grown porous tissue to cope with the rush of water and minerals required of the freshly opened leaves. As the summer approaches and the initial high demand for food subsides, the cambium lays down denser, harder latewood, which adds strength to the trunk and branches.
At the centre of the tree cross section is the pith or medulla. The pith is the small core of soft spongy tissue forming the original trunk or branch.
3.2 Gymnosperms & Angiosperms – Differences 3.2.1 Gymnosperms Gymnosperms (conifers, softwoods) are simpler in structure than angiosperms. Gymnosperms evolved earlier than angiosperms and have some distinct structural characteristics. More than 90 percent of the wood’s volume is made of tracheids. Tracheids are long fibrous cellulosic8 cells approximately 100 times longer than their diameter. They range between about 2 mm and 6 mm (about 1/16″ to 1/4″) in length depending on the species.
The two main functions of tracheids are as structure for the tree and as conductors of sap – nourishment. Tracheids conduct liquid food up the tree after the living protoplasm has left. Water and minerals pass upward to the leaves from one tracheid to the next via osmosis. Osmosis is the process where liquid from a high water (weak) solution passes through a cell wall into a low water (strong) solution. In softwood trees water and minerals move upward from the roots initially through upward root pressure created by soil-borne water migration into the root tracheid cells. Secondly, there is also transpirational pull created by water evaporating from the leaves. This method of conducting foodstuffs is distinctly different to the method used in broad-leaved trees described later.
The cambium layer lays down different forms of tracheids at different times of year. In the spring, the tracheids laid down are thin walled with a large diameter and are lighter in colour. Late-growth tracheids are dark coloured, have thicker walls and a smaller diameter. The early-wood tracheids with their thin walls are better at conducting liquid than the later thick-walled tracheids. Both will conduct water, but a tree needs structure as well as the ability to transport liquid – there is a necessary balance struck between the two functions in tracheid cell structure.
A distinctive characteristic found in some gymnosperms is resin carried in resin canals. Pine, spruce, larch and Douglas fir have resin canals. These timbers have a characteristic scent when worked, and the resin can cause bleeding problems under paint and polishes. One way of setting the resin solid to reduce bleeding problems is to raise the temperature of the wood during kiln drying to 175º F for a sustained period. Genuine gum turpentine is a product of the resin from Southern yellow pine, a tree of the North American continent.
Medullary rays are narrow in conifers and invisible to the naked eye, so to see them it’s necessary to mount thin wood samples on a slide for examination under a microscope.
3.2.2 Angiosperms Hardwoods are more complex than gymnosperms. There are a number of specialised cells present in angiosperms absent from gymnosperms. For instance, the means of conducting liquid foodstuffs up and down the tree in nearly all cases is through the vascular tubular vessels. This is distinctly different to the liquid-conducting tracheids of conifers. The vessels in angiosperms form a bundle of pipes encircling the tree. The fibrous tracheids of hardwoods are much smaller than they are in conifers and because of their thick walls they are not well suited to conduct liquids. Unlike the softwoods, the rays of deciduous trees are often easily visible, e.g., in oaks, sycamore, maple, beech etc. Resin canals are rare in angiosperms, but some tropical plants such as the rubber tree produce gum and have gum ducts.
My biggest stumbling block in getting started on my forthcoming Dutch tool chest book was (and remains) the camera. At Popular Woodworking Magazine, we had a fancy camera (we took our own step photos), but I always used it on the fully automatic mode. And I haven’t taken a photo with anything other than my phone since 2017.
Neither fully automatic mode nor phone snaps will fly for a book. I had to learn how to use at least a few of the bells and whistles on Christopher Schwarz’s Canon 5D, make friends with his ARRI LED light setup and, perhaps most important for me, learn how to zoom in on a particular spot to set the focus in live view (I have bad astigmatism and need new glasses).
It’s all so fancy (to me).
Chris was kind enough to give me a crash course and answer many inane (and repeat) questions as I got started. A week later and I’m having fun playing around with depth of field, shadows and blithely switching between a 2-second delay and a 10-second delay as needed. And yesterday, I learned how to hook up and use the remote shutter release! (I realize that doesn’t sound at all impressive, but the last time I used a remote shutter release it was a threaded shutter release cable for my father’s circa-1960 Asahi Pentax SLR that I used in college. And it was about three decades old by then.)
But I think I have it under control. With all but the lid finished on chest No. 1, I’ve managed to reduce the number of not-quite-right shots and the time to get a good one. On day 1, it took me at least 15 minutes to get the “right” image. I’m now down to about 5 minutes per. But at 5 minutes per, it sure takes a lot longer to build things than simply, well, building (a fact I’d managed to forget in my three years since PWM).
My plan is to discuss every reasonable approach to building these chests (and in the offing teach many techniques applicable to all kinds of builds), so no matter a reader’s tool kit, skill set or penchant for pre- or post-industrial woodworking, there will be a technique that appeals. That means I’ll be building quite a few chests (both large and small)…or at least parts of chests for close-up photography.
So I hope to get faster still with the photos – and better at deciding what to shoot and what not to (right now, I’m shooting almost every step). Otherwise, I’ll be done before the book is.
Chest on chest. The top one has fewer dovetails and more woodworking lessons.
The Anarchist’s Tool Chest poster was a letterpress project we did with the now-defunct Steam Whistle Letterpress and Randall Wilkins. Randy drew the image, and Steam Whistle printed the image on its proofing press. We’ve long sold out of the posters, and Steam Whistle has dissolved.
So now you can download a high-resolution image here and get it printed out at any print shop that can handle poster-sized jobs. This poster is 18” x 24”, a standard poster size and the size of the original.
If your local print shop is concerned about copyright violations, bless them. Print out this blog entry and show it to the employees. Lost Art Press is the copyright holder, and we grant you permission to print this out for your personal use.
The 10-year Anniversary of ATC It dawned on me recently that we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of the publication of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” You can be sure that we are planning on making a bunch of worthless trinkets for you to buy to commemorate the meaningless passage of time going to do very little to mark the occasion.
We are thinking about making a special baseball cap – something handmade in the USA – with an old-fashioned felt patch featuring the cover logo. But honestly, we might skip that.
What I am doing to mark the occasion is something I would encourage you to do as well: I am packing up tools that I don’t need and finding new homes for them. Recently I gave away an old tool chest, a dust collector and a thickness planer. I now have another box of tools ready and have several people in mind for them. (Hint: No need to pester me for free tools.)
Excess tools are a scourge. Taking care of them takes time away from my furniture making. And leaving tools idle keeps them out of the hands of people who could use them.
Where do my excess tools come from? Good question. Sometimes they are given to the shop as gifts. Sometimes when someone leaves the craft, they give us their tools to give to others. Sometimes locals find tools in the cellar and drop them off. And occasionally I need to buy a tool for an article or book or photo shoot I’m working on.
If you’ve never given away your excess tools, I recommend it. It’s cathartic.
Anyway, in the coming months we’ll soon have many more pieces of plastic junk from Oriental Trading Company branded with the ATC logo for you to buy and throw away we might have some news about that hat.
Krenov’s passport picture from the late 1970s, when he began traveling to promote his woodworking books. Image courtesy of the Krenov family.
For many American craftspeople (including many I interviewed who had a close relationship with James Krenov and his work), it appeared that Krenov emerged from Sweden a fully formed writer and cabinetmaker. That’s an understandable position; before the release of “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook,” Krenov’s foothold in America consisted of a few short appointments at Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Craftsmen and Boston University’s Program in Artisanry, and a single article in Crafts Horizon in 1967, “Wood: ‘… the friendly mystery…’”. Many of his students in California, even from the earliest classes, assumed that Krenov’s career began with the success of his books, or that he had been relatively obscure before their publication.
Inversely, looking at Swedish magazines, furniture histories and newspapers, you might get the impression that Krenov’s story ends after his meteoric rise to fame and his departure from Sweden in 1981, just after the release of his books. While a few of his closest friends and colleagues in Sweden wrote about Krenov or included him in their writing on modern Scandinavian furniture, the line goes pretty silent there after Krenov’s resettlement in California.
A rewarding part of writing “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints” was understanding and marrying these two disparate careers, and looking for the through-line to Krenov’s successes in both places. While this constitutes at least a few chapters’ worth of writing in the biography, I think it’s worth examining in a shorter piece as a means of understanding why James Krenov was a touchstone in the two different craft contexts in which he rose to renown.
Carl Malmsten (left), a student and Krenov (right) examine a scale model at Malmsten’s school in the late 1950s. Photo courtesy of the Krenov family.
When Krenov came to cabinetmaking in his late 30s, he was an outsider in Sweden and its crafts scene. He attended Carl Malmsten’s Verkstadsskola from 1957 to 1959, and it was there he impressed his first, and maybe most influential, pair of advocates.
The first was Malmsten; by this point in his career, Malmsten was perhaps the best-known figure in Swedish craft, having risen to his stature by designing a huge volume of furniture that blended the honest construction of the English Arts & Crafts movement with a strong Swedish vernacular aesthetic. Malmsten designed for the simplest homes and the most luxurious Swedish state houses; he was a household name.
Georg Bolin in the office at Malmsten’s Verkstadssskola. Photo by Kjell Orrling.
More behind the scenes, but no less influential among the tight circles of Stockholm’s art and craft scene, was Georg Bolin, the principal teacher at Malmsten’s school. Bolin was, by that time, an influential furniture maker and technician of the highest degree. He went on, through the latter half of his career, to design everything from fine furniture to novel “alto guitars,” and even a piano played for many years by Abba, Sweden’s second-largest monetary export, only outpaced by Volvo (until the arrival of IKEA).
As a student, Krenov impressed both Malmsten and Bolin. Shortly after his schooling, both men helped Krenov find a place for his work in the craft galleries and exhibitions of Stockholm, at a time when the Swedish craft scene was casting off functionalism for a more craft-oriented, holistic aesthetic that put craftspeople and handwork at the center.
While Krenov enjoyed minor successes in small shows and galleries (which any craftsperson would be proud to count on their resume), his inclusion in the 1964 exhibition “Form Fantasi,” at the Liljevalchs Kunsthall, was his big break. The exhibition was touted as a point of inflection in Swedish furniture and craft, and at the center of it were two of Krenov’s pieces, a wall cabinet and a silver chest. Krenov got into the juried show as a relatively unknown name (a newspaper article a few months prior misspelled his surname), but his friendship with Bolin and Malmsten certainly helped prime the judges for his work. (Both Bolin and Malmsten were also featured in the exhibition). When the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported the event, Krenov’s “Silver Chest” was chosen for the feature photograph out of the 2,500 pieces from 250 craftspeople. After this show, Krenov won the favor of influential critics and curators, including Dag Widman, director of the exhibition and editor of the publication FORM from the Svenska Slöjdföreningen (Swedish Society of Industrial Design). This led to a solo exhibition, “Liv i Trä” (“Life in Wood”) in 1965, and a cavalcade of features, press and exhibition opportunities, as well as a stipend from the Swedish government given to artists and craftspeople deemed to be doing work important to Swedish culture.
The April 10, 1964, article in Svenska Dagbladet that featured Krenov’s “Silver Chest” (here called a syschatull, or sewing chest) in its coverage of the “Form Fantasi” exhibition. Image courtesy of the Krenov family.
While his cabinetmaking opened the door to his success, there is significant evidence that Krenov’s strong voice as a critic and singular personality helped him rise in the ranks of Swedish craftspeople. He started appearing at public conversations about craft at the Nationalmuseum (which appointed Dag Widman as its chief superintendent in 1966). At the time, Sweden was wrestling with the position of the designer-craftsperson; for a long time prior to the 1960s, Swedish craft had largely followed the trends of continental Europe, with a distinct separation between the designer and the person executing the work. With the revival in craft, Sweden saw an explosion of craftspeople who designed and made their own work, more akin to artists than potters, silversmiths, weavers and woodworkers.
Krenov did not see himself in either of these groups. His education had been technical, focusing on exacting execution according to measured drawings. Krenov eschewed this rigid process after his graduation, but did not swing all the way to the more free-form position of craft as art, which eschewed historic context and technical skill for expression and artists’ statements. His unique position between the two led to a lonely post as an advocate for designer-craftspeople working with traditional joinery and historic forms that were distinctly furniture. He focused on solid construction, graceful form and a distinctly functional intention, but made no attempt to divorce his influences and personality from a piece’s execution. Alongside his appearances at public discourses, Krenov also began writing for FORM, where he took on the voice of an advocate for craft against the bulwark of both unchecked artistry and functionalist design.
By the mid-1970s, Krenov was at the top of Swedish crafts; he was a featured presenter, author and craftsperson in many of the museums and galleries. Few could aspire to more, but his feelings of under-appreciation in Sweden (spurred on by his unique position between two trends) left him looking to the other side of the ocean for greener pastures. In 1966, Craig McArt, a student from RIT, studied with Krenov for several months and persuaded Krenov to share some of his writing. McArt brought an essay back to the United States – the one published in 1967 by Craft Horizons. This first contact with America, and specifically McArt’s advocacy, led to his appointments at RIT and BU. These were combative but engendered a small but enthusiastic following of U.S. students and colleagues. Krenov would have had no problem in Sweden publishing his first book, an extensive elaboration on Craft Horizons essay that became “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook.” But he thought that in the States, unlike Europe, there existed a strong independence around craft, so there would be an eager generation of students who would be receptive to his philosophy – so he wanted his book published in English for an American audience.
And so, with the help of the RIT administration and McArt, Krenov published “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook” with Van Nostrand Reinhold, a publisher of art and craft books based in New York. After its publication, Krenov’s reputation in the United States exploded (which surprised his publisher; it had hardly promoted its release). Three more books came in just five years, as did invitations to present and teach stateside, and a few particularly motivated craftspeople on the West Coast established a school based on Krenov’s idiosyncratic approach. It was the school that ultimately convinced Krenov to make his move across the Atlantic, but by 1981, it is clear (in his writings and correspondence from the time) that he had been looking for a landing pad in the States for the better part of a decade.
Krenov and Britta, his wife, walking the headlands of Mendocino in the late 1970s during one of their first trips to California. Photo courtesy of the Krenov family.
So, in truth, Krenov entered the American context at a particularly high moment in his career – it was among an American audience that he passed from renowned furniture maker to celebrated author, teacher and influential craftsman. In Sweden, his advocates called for the books to be translated into Swedish. They wanted Swedes to read the philosophy and sensitivity that both Swedish aesthetics and opposition thereto engendered in Krenov. The books were not translated, however, and while there are echoes of Krenov’s influence in Sweden’s woodworking trends (particularly in Malmsten’s schools at Capellgården and Krenov’s alma mater, the Verskstadsskola), his move to the States also largely closed the book on his lasting influence in Sweden.
Krenov’s aesthetic and technical approaches, however, were certainly born in his nearly four decades in Sweden. I would argue that his arrival and warm reception in America constitutes a potent reverberation of the European Arts & Crafts movement’s influence on American woodworking, with Krenov’s direct lineage from Malmsten, who had visited Gimson and the Barnsleys in the Cotswolds in the 1920s. Krenov rose from the plateau of fame he had reached in Sweden to an even higher perch in America, on the back of both his writing and the establishment of his school. If nothing else, he was a singular presence in both countries; his resonance with the curators and critics of Sweden was matched by his reception among the dedicated woodworkers of America – those who were looking for a different approach than the technical manuals that dominated American woodworking publications in the middle of the 20th century. Neither country can claim Krenov as their own; certainly it was Sweden that fostered his development, but it was the United States that gave him his biggest audience, an appreciative student body and a warm reception.
Krenov’s passport photo from the 1950s, before his American passport was revoked by the United States Government for not returning stateside after five years (a legal requirement for naturalized citizens that was overturned in 1964). Photo courtesy of the Krenov family.
But Krenov never found exactly what he was looking for. He was a Russian-born, American expatriate living in Sweden for decades, including the first two decades of his career as a woodworker. For several years in the 1960s, before the Schneider v. Rusk decision on the status of naturalized U.S. citizens living abroad, he was even a stateless person, having lost his naturalized American citizenship after not returning to the States for several years. While he regained his citizenship in the mid-1960s, it is perhaps most fitting to consider Krenov a stateless craftsperson; it suits his position as an independent force in both countries, someone who never settled for the successes he won.
A story that might sum up his tireless, even contrarian, position was told to me by Tina, Krenov’s youngest daughter. She recalled that in Sweden, when she was growing up, her father insisted that they find turkey for their Christmas dinner, something he remembered from his teenage years in Seattle. But upon the family’s resettlement in California, where turkey might have been much easier to procure, Krenov insisted on ham for their holiday dinner, as the Swedes had preferred. It might be this resistance to comfort that gave Krenov the drive to look to the next opportunity. It is certainly a factor of his success in Sweden, and the driving force behind his relocation to California. With this lens, we can see the continuity in Krenov’s seemingly separate careers in Sweden and the United States, and we might better understand how the perceived loneliness or isolation of his approach ended up bringing him a wider audience and community than any one group or country could have provided.
