Lost Art Press

From Point to Person

Posted on by fitz

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Among Renaissance-era artists, man was often framed within geometric shapes, most commonly (and most famously) squares and circles. However, humans are five vertex creatures (as are the majority of living organisms), a fact that perhaps lead other artists to depict man set within a circle divided into five equal parts: in other words, describing a pentagram. As shown in the mid-16th century illustration above, this artist envisioned man embracing all the quintessential (i.e. five essence) elements, including what later became known in Hollywood as the “force.” The symbols, starting at top and moving clockwise represent: spirit, water, fire, earth and air.

Albrecht Durer

Albrecht Durer, one of the most famous geometer/artists of the Renaissance, developed a geometric construction that generated a five-sided polygon out of the interaction of a certain combination of circles with a square. Symbolically speaking, that exercise would be nothing less than the melding of the triadic cosmos with the earth, the home of man.

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Durer’s construction – the pentagon is in red.

The free downloadable pamphlet we’ve made available here presents the sequence of steps that takes us all the way from a dimensionless point to a pentagon. As we go along, we see how Albrecht’s construction generates the necessary sequence of geometric shapes (circles, triangles, hexagon and square) to get us there. We’ll briefly describe some of the symbolism behind each of the construction phases and then, finally, take a look at whether or not this whole thing is, in mathematical truth, “real.” At that point it’s up to you to decide if any of this symbolic understory has anything at all to do with the design and layout work of artisans (which we have explored at length in our books “By Hand and Eye” and “From Truths to Tools.”) In our opinion:  Probably nothing, but possibly everything!

— Jim Tolpin, byhandandeye.com

Update on the Chore Coat

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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The employees at Dehen 1920 are sewing up the Lost Art Press chore coats, but they are running a bit behind (we don’t know why, I’m afraid).

As a result, the chore coats should ship to customers in early May.

As soon as we get additional information and exact shipping dates, we’ll share it with you here.

Apologies for the delay, but we know they will be worth it.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Customers have asked when we will open up ordering for the next run of coats. We are planning to take orders in August for fall delivery.

Chester Cornett & His Roman Workbench

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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I’ve seen a blurry photograph of a detail of Chester Cornett’s chairmaking workbench and read Michael Owen Jones’s description of the bench in “The Craftsman of the Cumberlands.” At the time I thought: That sounds like a Roman-style workbench.

And yesterday I found out that I was correct.

Brendan Gaffney and I visited the storeroom of the Mathers Museum of World Culture in Bloomington, Ind., to view artifacts related to Cornett. And we got more than we bargained for. In addition to some of Cornett’s traditional chairs and rockers, the Mathers also had Cornett’s incredible “bookcase rocker” (more on that from Brendan in a future entry), a chair made by Cornett’s grandfather, Cornett’s worn-down Pexto drawknife, his worn-out dumbhead shavehorse and his workbench.

Located on the top rack in the storeroom, the workbench is a segment of a log with four staked legs. The workholding consists of three pegs that Chester could wedge his work between – exactly as described by M. Hulot in his 18th-century book on turning and chairmaking.

I’m pretty sure that Cornett didn’t read Hulot. So it is an amazing thing to see this low Roman-style workbench made by a 20th century woodworker who lived in the wilds of Eastern Kentucky. Did he come up with the idea for the bench himself? Was it something he learned from his family members who also were chairmakers?

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The bench is 11” wide at the top and the benchtop is 10” from the ground. The log segment is 4” thick at its thickest point and about 62” long. The four legs are about 1” to 1-1/4” thick and wide x 8” long (minus their tenons).

So this is just another data point showing that low workbenches, as described in “Ingenious Mechanicks,” haven’t disappeared.

— Christopher Schwarz

Designing with Ornament

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

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This is an excerpt from “By Hand and Eye” by Geo. R. Walker and Jim Tolpin. 

“[Architectural ornamentation] liberates us from the tyranny of the useful and satisfies our need for harmony.” — Roger Scruton

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The subtle
carving on this table
leg accomplishes
several things at once.
It highlights the form,
provides interest for a
close view and emphasizes
this object’s
place of importance in
the life of a home.

Traditionally, ornament and mouldings were employed to punctuate and emphasize a form. Even though they’ve been overdone, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a valid place. Our woodworking design tradition has seen wide swings in taste concerning ornament, embellishment and mouldings. Some periods drip with overcooked gingerbread, some scrape clean down to the bone. A few contemporary designers even abhor figured wood, and some modernist designers dictated that ornament should be allowed only if it looked machine made – no hints of man’s hand. It’s difficult today, with the pendulum swung away from traditional ornament, to see how it was originally viewed, especially when bursts of excess litter our furniture history. It might be helpful to understand the original craft intent and not simply write off traditional ornament and mouldings as a relic of another era. Ornament must complete a design – similar to the effect of leaves on a tree or feathers on a bird. It’s not an add-on, it’s not a strategy to rescue an inferior design. Abraham Swan (circa 1757) wrote, “If the original design be bad, superadded ornaments will make the whole appear like a clown in a laced waistcoat.”

The bones underneath must be good or ornament will only make the whole design worse. That’s the reason so much mass-produced 20th-century Colonial-style furniture fails so pointedly.

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Ornament and mouldings must have a function. While we think today of function as primarily a structural element (a way to meet a physical requirement), the craft idea of function was much broader, because the definition of function included visual appearance. Mouldings or other ornaments were used to emphasize a form, create a visual border, transition one part to the next or to create layers of interest on different scales (such as a close view). Another function of ornament is to set something apart. As reflected in Swan’s quotation above, this human need to embellish what we value is the reason that even our ancestors of modest means felt compelled to use ornament to decorate a powder horn, dowry chest or quilt. The question to ask is not whether the ornament or moulding adds to the design, but whether the design lacks something without it.

— Meghan B.

‘Cut & Dried’ Available for Pre-publication Ordering

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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During the last few months we have released a lot of material, including two books, a chore coat and the return of five T-shirt designs. We never intended all these new products to come out at once (with more in the wings).

This happened because we don’t operate like a typical publishing business that releases books timed with the seasons of the year. Instead, we release books when there is nothing more we can do to them to make them better. As a result, we have both dry spells and this current deluge of excellent material, including our latest book.

We have just sent off “Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology” by Richard Jones to the printer, and it is scheduled to ship in mid to late May. This book was a massive undertaking by Richard, who sought to explain everything a serious woodworker needs to know about wood in language and terms intended for the artisan.

There are, of course, lots of excellent scientific papers and tomes available that explain wood as a construction material. Most of these resources are written for wood scientists. Others are written for project managers at large construction firms. Still others are aimed at the large cabinetshop that deals with sheet goods almost exclusively.

Richard-Jones---RichardJ-2018-03edit“Cut & Dried” is not like that. Richard has spent his entire adult life as a professional woodworker in the U.K. and the U.S., and has worked at the highest levels of craftsmanship. His goal with “Cut & Dried” was to explain an extremely complex and technical topic – wood technology – in terms that any serious woodworker could easily grasp. And he skipped the stuff for making buildings, bridges and plywood boxes.

This book is massive – 9″ x 12″, hardbound, with 336 pages on heavy coated stock. The entire book is in full color with a full-color dust jacket. As a result, this book is $65, a price that includes domestic shipping.

If you order during this pre-publication period, you will receive an instant pdf download of the book, which is searchable and (of course) portable. After the book is released, the pdf will cost $32.50.

“Cut & Dried” is intended to become a reference for any shop that deals with solid wood. It is carefully organized so you can find the answers to problems at the bench, or questions at the drafting table.

Here is the detailed Table of Contents, which makes that point better than any blog entry from me:

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As always, all our books are produced entirely in the U.S., using the highest-quality materials. Our books’ signatures are sewn for longevity – we don’t offer glued-together pages spit out by a print-on-demand copier. We work with printing plants that care deeply about the survival of the printed word in this age of cheap information.

One more point: We keep our books in print as long as authors are willing to do so. Every standard book we’ve released in the last 11 years is still in print. So even if you can’t afford “Cut & Dried” today, it will be here in 18 months (unlike a traditional publisher) for you to purchase at that time.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Numerous retailers, including Lee Valley Tools and Classic Hand Tools in the U.K. have expressed interest in selling this title. So look to those retailers if you are in Canada or the U.K.