James Krenov breaking down a large slab outside his home in Bromma, Sweden. Krenov possessed an incredible talent for predicting what kind of wood he might find inside a board – and I find myself looking across the details of his life with the same hope of gleaning what insights lie ahead as I break down his story and legacy.
I returned this morning from a week of researching, scanning and interviewing on the Mendocino Coast of Northern California, where James Krenov spent the last 25 years of his life. While there, I had the privilege of looking through and archiving a huge number of photos, drawings, writings, lectures and correspondences that span Krenov’s lifetime, a bounty of raw materials to work through in the coming months.
In going through the photos and organizing my notes from interviews and conversations with his family, friends, shopmates and coworkers, a complex and mutable portrait of Krenov and his many facets has begun to emerge. There is the poetic writer and gifted orator who inspired so many through his books and lectures; the mentor and teacher who provided the backbone for a craft school that continues to churn out inspiration and talent; a deliberate cabinetmaker, encouraging sensitivity and improvisation, while also practicing a deliberate process of design and iteration; the irascible old master who had little patience for uncaring work or needless invention; a loving husband, ever-thankful for the support of his partner; and a very human father, one whose children tip-toed around the house with caution while he glued up his next cabinet, but who took them fishing and adventuring in the northern wilderness of Sweden.
Krenov and his daughter, Tina, on her first fishing trip in the rural Härjedalen province of Sweden in 1964.
While I am still early in my development of his biography, these raw materials themselves provide a beautiful series of vignettes into Krenov’s vastly complex persona that I hope shed light on just why this cabinetmaker’s story is so worthy of sharing. I’m in the midst of organizing these materials, which will themselves be archived and housed by The Krenov Foundation, so that future researchers and interested parties might find and include Krenov in their work.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be posting these various sides of Krenov (or Jim, or “the Old Man,” or JK) as I dig through the archives. My aspiration in writing this biography is not simply to retell the “who, what, when” of his story, but to shed light on the lives he impacted and those ideas, moments and memories that shaped him as a mentor, writer and craftsperson.
I’ll leave you with the simple triptych below, a very narrow window into one side of Krenov that few outside of the municipal tennis courts of Fort Bragg ever saw. Yet it seems to sum up the competitive, mercurial, sensitive and generous personalities (and free-wheeling band saw usage) that made Krenov who he was. Krenov was an avid tennis player; stories abound in the community about his constant search for a good (but not too good) court mate and the perfect racket.
So I present to you one side among so many: James Krenov, the amateur tennis player.
Krenov at the school’s behemoth Oliver band saw, during school hours, shaping the handle of that month’s racket, in 1992. Photo by David Welter.Two years later, in 1994, and another racket is under the knife (or file, in this case) having its handle smoothed and reshaped. Photo by David Welter.Krenov in action at the Harold O. Bainbridge public tennis courts, just a few blocks away from the school in Fort Bragg, Calif.
P.S. I owe a great many thanks to those who hosted me and sat down for conversations during my stay: Tina Krenov; David and Laura Welter; Ron Hock and Linda Rosengarten; Laura and Thea Mays; Michael Burns; Ejler Hjorth-Westh and Karen Mathes; Jim Budlong; Greg Smith; Todd Sorenson; Crispin Hollinshead; and the current students at The Krenov School (who gracefully put up with my hovering, photographing and rusty volleyball skills). I’m lucky to have such a warm and welcoming community of people to work with over the course of writing this book – it makes all the difference.
Every so often you hear from a reader who really gets where you’re coming from. This is not to say they’re the only ones who get it, just that they take the time to let you know. (An outstanding example is Dan Clausen’sscholarly essay about Lost Art Press.)
A most welcome addition to my bookshelves, @nrhiller’s English Arts and Crafts is simply stunning. If you’ve read any of Nancy’s other work, you already know that she puts as much craftsmanship into her writing as she does into her furniture. And yet this book still pleasantly surprised me in a few ways:
1) The book has the most elegant endpaper of any on my woodworking shelves. An excellent departure from the monotony of the crowd.
2) While there are plans for a few designs inside, the book is not your typical project-by-project guide. Instead, it is an accessible and engaging conversation about the history, aesthetics, and philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement, all beautifully interwoven with projects and techniques from some of Nancy’s most recent works.
3) Throughout, the pictures are beautifully human. Archival photos and museum pictures blend seamlessly with portraits of Nancy’s craftsmanship. But the in-process photos from her shop are my favorites. Nancy’s workspace looks humble, mortal. Her lighting is not always perfect. These “flaws” combine to bring the images back into dialogue with the text, to create a harmonious tone of real-world art and craft…. [emphasis added]
What spoke to me most was not the part about the endpapers (credit for those goes to Megan Fitzpatrick; the pattern, based on an original design by C.F.A. Voysey, is by David Berman of Trustworth Studios) or the bit about my interweaving of history with projects and techniques (that struck me as the best way to structure this book and underscore the relevance of particular ideals and individuals related to each of the projects—in other words, a no-brainer). It was the bit about the dialogue between the text and the process shots in my shop.
I have some hang-ups about my shop in this age of studiously curated imagery. Anyone who has visited will be aware that I issue a knee-jerk apology at the door. “It’s really a glorified garage,” I say, “but it’s by far the nicest shop I’ve had in my life.” Both statements are true.
It’s not the building that troubles me. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to work in a converted church, timber-framed barn, or urban horse garage instead of my prosaic pole-barn covered in T 1-11 siding, but none of those is presently an option. My compulsive apology is more a response to the state of affairs inside. Partially finished pieces from magazine shoots (so close to being usable! I can’t bear to cut them up for kindling) preclude anything approaching a Zen vista. Routers and other small machines are stored on open shelves, as are tool bags and boxes, shims, levels, and other equipment for onsite installation work. On the wall above the chop saw are drywall and painting supplies; I’m no drywaller or painter, but some of my built-in jobs require minor drywall repair and painting, and it’s simpler for my clients, as well as more affordable, if I just take care of the whole shebang and save them the bother of choreographing multiple tradespersons. On another wall, more open shelves house boxes of screws, nails, washers, and other fasteners.
Someday I will finish the magazine projects and make doors for all those open shelves, streamlining the visuals and enhancing dust control. (Maybe.)
I am aware of what’s behind my compulsion to apologize: I have internalized prevailing norms regarding how a furniture maker’s shop should look. I personally have no problem with the state of my shop. I work well in a somewhat cluttered environment, maybe because the overwhelming majority of the shops where I have worked, starting in 1980, had a similar, um, “aesthetic.” But when I show the place to new people, I assume they’re judging it against the orderly, dust-free standard published widely in magazines, TV, and social media.
Bench view, 1985, “Farmstead Furniture.” Across the narrow floor from my bench was the bench of one of my bosses. Note the stylish sewing cabinet, which was being repaired for a relative; the plastic draft excluder at the window; the stove set firmly in the midst of flammable materials (not something I have in my shop); and the evident lack of concern with appearances. This original workshop (which would later be subsumed within a larger modern structure) was a converted farm building. Some of the loveliest furniture I have ever seen was built in this milieu.
“But it’s irresponsible to have your shop in that condition when taking process shots for a book!” some may protest.
Really?
Call me cantankerous. In this, as in most subjects on which I write, I want to resist the suffocating pressure to conform. As a woodworker, I come from a background populated by those who made things because (a) they chose this way of making a living, (b) they had limited resources, and (c) they did not give a fig what visitors thought, because it was their shop and they were the ones who knew about the work involved. In each case, they had arranged their working space for the kinds of work they did. These people were judicious about how they spent their time, energy, and money. What mattered was how their shop functioned for them. The workplace was for work.
Things are different today. We live in an age when gorgeous imagery of work and the doing of it can boost sales in real ways (especially when those doing the work are attractive human specimens; this applies all the more to females). And still I want to resist.
*
The whole situation puts me in mind of articles that would be the 21st-century woodworkers’ equivalent of the Woman’s Own magazines we used to read at boarding school in the early 1970s, while sitting on the old steam radiators because it was so cold. Rumor had it that sitting on warm radiators caused piles, a.k.a. hemorrhoids, but we were just too frozen to care. “Is there a right way to hang the loo roll?” headlines earnestly inquired, or “Which type of fringe [Brit-speak for what Yanks call bangs] best suits your facial shape?” There’s an increasingly insidious preoccupation today with how we are seen.
Granted, when your livelihood depends on others, it would be foolish not to take your potential clients’ preferences into account. But at the same time, let’s think carefully about just how much we’re willing to let ourselves be swayed—if not downright defined—by others’ expectations. We live in a moment when we can be followed, visually and in other ways, by people all over the world. Maybe there’s something salutary in standing up for what matters to us instead of allowing ourselves to be overly shaped by our desire to be “liked.”
That Brian Clites (a.k.a. @thewoodprof) got this from those process shots tells me he’s a careful reader.
Leffler, Warren K, photographer. Husband, Wife and Two Children, Seated in a Living Room, Listening to a Radio. , ca. 1957. [De] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014647922/.“The making of fine furniture – the very words have a full, rich ring to them, bringing the craftsman into line with his forebears, the men who created the English tradition of fine workmanship, and throwing a glow of hope and inspiration upon the future. Here is something for which a man does not require worldly wealth, but the riches of his own personality, the powers which can be cultivated, the judgment which can be trained. Fine furniture is not showy or extravagant – it is the furniture which is wisely planned and beautifully made. The choicest wood can be marred by careless handling, sound homely stuff transformed by good design and first-rate workmanship into something anyone would be proud to own. Nowadays we cannot heap up worldly goods arounds us – prices are too high. The old Victorian plentitude – with its rooms full of gleaming mahogany, too big and cumbersome for modern taste and modern homes – has gone with very little likelihood of return. But our very limitations can be our gain if we see that what we have is as good as we can make it. The grand thing about fine furniture is that, properly treated, it grows still more gracious with time, when the scars and scratches it acquires from the exuberance of a young, growing family need be no disfigurement. It is marvellous how regular, routine polishing, continued over a long period, will mellow them till they look no more disfiguring that the lines on a comely old face. They are landmarks, taking us back over the years, the guides and pegs around which memories will cluster and which, when we reach old age, will be there to remind us of the lives they have shared, of the sorrows and happiness the past has brought us, which now, like a rich tapestry of many hues, can be enjoyed in tranquility.”
I am particularly pleased to tell you that Chris Williams will travel from Wales to the Lost Art Press storefront in Covington, Ky., on May 20-24, 2019, to teach his class on building Welsh stick chairs.
Chris worked with John Brown in Wales for many years, refining the design of this chair while cranking out hundreds of them to sell. I know of no one else alive who knows more about building these chairs than Chris.
After assisting in his class last year, I can say that his approach to making these chairs is remarkable. Chris seeks to teach students how to make these chairs with a minimum of jigs and just a small set of tools. You don’t need a shavehorse, and most of the work is with handplanes.
And because of Chris’s long friendship with John Brown (who passed away 10 years ago) you can almost hear John Brown’s voice in the lessons – “think round,” “think flat” and “I don’t give a monkey’s….” In addition to the lessons in woodworking, Chris is keen on explaining John Brown’s world – how JB approached the craft, embraced handwork and broached no compromise.
Most of all, however, students walk away with one beautiful chair. These chairs are incredibly comfortable, roomy and stout. And this chair is what launched me on my chairmaking journey more than 15 years ago and remains my obsession.
Because of the intense nature of this class, we request that students in the class have built at least one chair before attending. The class can be demanding at times. Your tools need to be sharp and ready to go. This is not a beginner’s course.
For full details on the class, go to our registration page. Registration opens at 10 a.m. Eastern on Oct. 12. There will be only six students, and I’ll be assisting Chris again, so there will be lots of personal attention throughout the week.
I’ve just finished up designing the third new chapter for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” on the boarded settle chair. (What is the deal with this expansion? Here’s an FAQ.)
Thanks to all the odd angles, this boarded chair is great fun to build and is surprisingly comfortable. And the lumber bill is only $55. It is an imposing piece of furniture, and the bold curves I cut on the sides only make it more eye-catching. To turn down the volume a bit, I painted the sides black, which allows the chair to recede a bit in a room.
This design is based on historical examples from Northern Wales and Northern England that I’ve seen in furniture books. Sometimes called “lambing chairs,” many of the originals are in pine.
Below is the link to download this chapter. Here are the usual caveats:
The writing is still a bit rough. Megan Fitzpatrick edited it today, but there might be a few typos we still need to clean up for the print edition.
The construction drawing is still crude. In the printed version there will be a nice copperplate etching from Briony Morrow-Cribbs in its place.
This chapter is intended for those who already own the current edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” So this chapter is offered on the honor system. Those who download the chapter without owning the book will be forced to play dice with wombat poop (which is apparently square).
That’s it. Thanks to everyone who has bought the book, and I hope you are enjoying the new chapters. There are two (maybe three) more to go.
