Lost Art Press

For Your Library: Time Capsules Filled With Oak Furniture

Posted on by saucyindexer

Fred Roe was an accomplished artist who later became an expert and collector of oak furniture. Three of his books are available online to add to your digital library. Although most of the oak pieces are British there are some Continental examples. Even if you are not a fan of oak furniture there are historical anecdotes, and as one would expect, plenty of carvings. One great value of these old books is finding inspiration for your next project be it in wood, stone, textiles or that waiting-to-be-filled space between your  tattoos.

Book One: “Ancient Coffers and Cupboards” was published in 1902, includes drawings by Fred Roe and begins with The Dark Ages. I have always been fascinated with linen fold panels and was happy to find ‘The Linen Panel’ chapter (sample platter below). Roe’s drawings are well done and help you see carving details that get lost in old halftone photographs. You can find the first book here.

Book Two: “Old Oak Furniture” was published in 1907 and all the images are drawings by Fred Roe.

In the chapter on ‘Old Furniture with Hiding-Places’ there is a tale involving a bed, a treasure and Richard III on his way to Bosworth. The chapter also gives you several ideas on where to search for your own hidden treasure. You can find the second book here.

Book Three: “A History of Oak Furniture” was published in 1920 and was part of a series by The Connoisseur Magazine.

Joint stool with 15th c. French manuscript reference.
Joint stool with 15th c. French manuscript reference.

This book is comprised of short chapters followed by a large selection of photographs. There is some overlap with his previous books, but put together the three books provide a small library of aumbries, benches, boxes, chairs, coffers, cupboards, dressers, stools, tables and all sorts of decorative details. You can find the third book here.

Fred Roe was able to document furniture and decorative elements found in public establishments and on private estates. Some of the old taverns and houses were later demolished, private estates were sold and their treasures auctioned. In the first quarter of the 20th century he captured a collection of oak furniture, and a century later we can still learn from and enjoy his time capsule.

–Suzanne Ellison

Book Report: Nick Offerman’s ‘Good Clean Fun’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Most woodworking books are as dry as a popcorn fart discharged in the high desert plain. In the effort to communicate doctrinaire woodworking information, many authors (me included, at times) forget one simple fact: The writing has to be dang compelling or no one will read it.

That’s why many woodworking writers (me included) live in an echo chamber. We write for the people who are already indoctrinated into the sisterhood of sap. Our shorthand is impenetrable for the people on the outside of the cambium layer. We are happy to tell you “how” to do any operation imaginable. But we fail to tell you “why” you would ever want to.

“I can teach a man to sail but I can never teach him why.”
— Timothy E. Thatcher, published in “The American Scholar”

Enter Nick Offerman. For years I’ve watched him slip woodworking scenes into the “Parks & Recreation” series – a canoe here, a Christian Becksvoort there. I watched his “American Ham” special on HBO, where Offerman pledged his love for the grain. And whenever he appeared on late-night television, Offerman was smelling wood (sorry) or talking about working his wood (also sorry).

A lot of us wondered: Is Offerman one of us? Is he hard core?

This fall, Offerman’s latest book “Good Clean Fun” (Dutton) hit the shelves and we have our answer. This book is important – much in the way that James Krenov’s “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook” is important. It is a huge piece of stink bait globbed onto the hook of hard-core woodworking.

“Good Clean Fun” is, like Offerman’s other books, hilarious. And this time he is selling the act of woodworking to the unconverted. He makes woodworking seem like a voyage of self-discovery that you make with a posse of like-minded misfits – all members of the Offerman Woodshop in California (with a branch office in the Middle West).

Yes, you learn to set up a shop, choose your tools and make some projects. But you are also treated to some of the funniest step-by-step instruction I’ve ever read. During a chapter written by his brother on making a cribbage board, Nick interjects himself into the instruction:

NICK: Another great spot for the card scraper!

MATT (Nick’s brother): I’m told an angel loses its wings every time you use a hand tool.

These wisecracks inhabit every page of this 344-page book, waiting for you to discover them. Whether it’s a section on how to drive a wedge into a nasty species (“Suck on that eucalyptus”), or an aside on meeting Mira Nakashima and learning of her love of flat-sheen finishes (“Ha ha. I knew glossy finishes were for the birds! Sorry, I got excited. Of course glossy finishes have their place. In 1987. I kid.”) The book is a total and complete hoot.

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There’s a section on fashion. Recipes for workshop food. Profiles of interesting woodworkers – Nakashima, Becksvoort, Jimmy DiResta and chairmaker Peter Galbert. There’s a comic book section on harvesting your own lumber. Plus measured drawings of birdhouses.

I know that not everyone gets Offerman’s sense of humor, like not all of us get Roy Underhill or Norm Abram (yes, he’s funny). But I can tell you this: If you buy this book and give it to someone who seems the woodworking type, you can bet they will read it. It’s hard not to – make a canoe paddle? Yes, please. Make a Slingshot Dining Chair with Michele Diener? Wow. Jokes about coiling a band saw blade? Indeed.

This book might not be for you – if you are reading this blog then you probably bleed sawdust when pricked. But this book is something you don’t have – the latest and greatest tool for recruiting new woodworkers, growing the craft and generally extending a kindly hand to young people, women, minorities and the disaffected.

I haven’t read a book in the last 25 years that has as much potential to grow the craft. Buy one copy for yourself and a second one to wrap up and slip to a niece or nephew at Christmas.

That’s my plan.

— Christopher Schwarz

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Welsh Stick Chair Influences

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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All the good furniture designers I know are deeply informed by the past, and they either fold it into their work or rebel against it.

I always try to come clean about my design influences for several reasons. First, it’s only fair to acknowledge the people who blazed the trail before you were born. And second, I hope to inspire other makers to plumb the past to inform their contemporary work.

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Today I applied the final coat of paint to a pair of Welsh stick chairs for a customer in Colorado. No detail of these chairs has been copied. I designed these from scratch. Yet, I’d be a liar if I didn’t acknowledge all the places where these chairs came from.

First there’s John Brown. His writing introduced me to this form, and his book “Welsh Stick Chairs” had this drawing in it, which has haunted me for about 20 years.

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It’s a stick chair with a back that has four spindles and a bent arm bow. And the legs have always mystified me. While they have no stretchers, there are holes drawn on the legs that suggest the chair might have had stretchers at one time.

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Then came Don Weber. I’ve taken his chairmaking class twice now. The first time was more than 13 years ago, and a second time was this fall in conjunction with his new video: “Build a Welsh Stick Chair.” Weber is an excellent instructor and makes the construction process easy. I highly recommend this video if you would like to build a chair in this vein.

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And there are many other chairs that I encountered on the way. Some had stretchers. Some didn’t. Some had simple turnings. Others had bulbous English-style stretchers. I’ve tried to boil down all the details so they are informed by the past but are not tied to a particular era.

I know, it seems a messy way to design furniture: Gather all the designs you like and put them in a giant food processor. You hope for transcendent guacamole and fear fluffy mackerel pudding.

— Christopher Schwarz

Plate 287. Sections Appropriate for Angled Panels and for Friezes

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

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This is an excerpt from “Roubo on Marquetry” by André-Jacob Roubo; translation by Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán & Philippe Lafargue.

Cabinetry panels are ordinarily surrounded by friezes, whether of the same wood oriented in different directions, or in compositions, which is the same thing; in one or the other case, one sometimes puts banding of different colors, surrounded by stringwork, as I have already said. These bandings form a second frame around the panel, the four angles of which one makes various crossovers [where the banding crosses over itself at 90°], as represented in Figs. 1, 2 and 3, which are positioned in the same manner, although different in form, one from the other.

Whether the bandings are simple, as in Figs. 2 and 3, or they are doubled, as in Figure 1, it is always necessary that they be surrounded by stringwork, which separates them from the rest of the work, which is a general rule in all cases. This stringwork is ordinarily white; however, one can make them of other colors, which is not important, provided that their color makes a break with the woods that separate them, and that they be of a wood very exible [pliable] and along the grain, so as to be able to work them very easily, as I will teach in a moment. See Fig. 4, which represents a banding with its two strings, which are glued there, showing as much of the face as the side.

When the colors of the frieze are very different from that of the panels, it happens that the stringwork does not distinguish enough from one or the other color, which obliges putting a double stringwork of two different colors, which are in opposition with the background of the work, which is a different color. Look at Fig. 5, which represents stringwork of five types, namely a double stringwork, side A–B; a triple stringwork, of which the middle is black, side C; another triple stringwork of which the middle is white, side D; a triple stringwork of which the middle is half black and white, side E; finally another type of triple stringwork, of which the three parts that make it are all half-colors, and in opposition one to the other, side F.

Friezes are sometimes made of sections with woods of different colors, which form simple frames, or are filled in across their whole width, by whichever composition. The first way to make friezes, represented in Figs. 6 and 7, is the simplest, and does not require any more care than to trace regular circles or lozenges, whether these friezes be without bandings, as in Fig. 6, or with bandings, as in Fig. 7.

The second way to fill in the interior of friezes is much more complicated than the first, because the space of these last ones being ordinarily limited, the parts that compose the composition of which they are filled in can only be very small. This makes their perfect execution very difficult, especially since one normally puts Greek keys or broken bands there, which are comprised of a large number of different small pieces, as one can see in Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

The Greek keys or broken bands, represented in these different figures, are more or less composed according to the size of the friezes, and are traced in the same manner, as I am going to explain.

When one wishes to trace this sort of ornament, it is necessary first of all, after having traced the middle of the frieze, as line a–b, Fig. 8, to divide the width of the frieze in as many equal parts as the composition requires, seven being the number in this figure [the filled being equal to the empty; in other words, there is balance between the positive and negative space]. This being done, one traces as many parallel lines as there are points in the given division; then one traces these same spaces or divisions perpendicularly, observing that one finds one in the middle of the work, as in this figure; after which one determines the shape of the broken bands, to which one makes as many turns as are necessary to fill in the length of the frieze, observing that at the end, one has made an entire revolution, or at least a happy ending, without having seemed to have been cut, as I had to do in Fig. 8, side G; in that of Fig. 9, side H; that of Fig. 10, side I, and that of Fig. 11, side L.

One inconvenient observation is that if the width of the frieze is bordered, its length cannot be made until after dividing this same width in as many pieces as one judges appropriate, as one could see above. If, on the contrary, it is the length of the frieze that is given, as happens ordinarily, one cannot determine the width until after having made the choice of composition that one wants to use, and of the number of turns that half of the length of the frieze could contain, which will give a number of whichever parts, on which one divides the middle of the length of the frieze, observing still to put one of these divisions in the middle of the length. The division of the length of the frieze once made, one will easily have the width, since the division is already made, repeated as many times as necessary, according to the adopted composition that is given.

What I just said touching on the division of Fig. 8 is applicable to all the others of such types as they can be; that is why I do not speak any further of this, given that only an inspection of the figures can, and even should suffice, for as much as one wishes to pay attention.

Figure 12 represents a type of composition appropriate for filling boxes or squared sections, separated one from the others, as is found sometimes, especially in the corners of friezes, where they can take the place of rosettes or other ornaments.

— MB

New Colors for the Lost Art Press Storefront

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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When Lucy and I purchased 837 Willard St. for our next home and workshop, we loved the building but were aghast at the paint job. I describe the color of the bricks as “inflatable sex doll” with highlights of baby blue and white.

This week those colors are on the retreat as a crew from Brian Driscoll Painting are repairing, recaulking and repainting the entire exterior. AJ and Jerome, the two painters who started the job, are both older than I am. They are methodical and meticulous. And they both care about good work.

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The bricks are being repainted a light grey that has some green in it. The cast iron storefront is going to be a much darker grey. The sills will be a cream color. The details in the sills and cast iron will be picked out in dark grey and cream as appropriate.

We had a limited palette of colors to work with as we are in an historic district and any exterior changes need to be approved by the city. Our color choices were approved five days after submitting them, and I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to see the odd flesh color of our brick being replaced by a nice coat of grey.

You can check out the new paint job for yourself this Saturday as our doors will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Also, I’ll have a three-legged chair from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” on hand for you to try out. Don’t be scared, no one has fallen out of it – yet.

— Christopher Schwarz