I do a lot of drafting and sketching at my workbench, so I’m always swiping stools from the house and they are always underfoot in the shop.
So when Jeff Burks sent me this 1916 photo of a manual training bench designed by D.V. Ferguson of St. Paul, Minn., I immediately latched onto the swing-out seat. I’ve seen these seats before in factory lunchrooms, but it never clicked as a bench accessory. Until now.
Vintage ones are expensive ($400 or so), so I’ve got my brain thinking on MacGuyvering one from off-the-rack metal components and (duh) wooden ones.
At last year’s H. O. Studley exhibit in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I offered a limited edition art print of the H. O. Studley tool cabinet and workbench. Due to time constraints in the weeks prior to the exhibit, I was only able to produce 82 of the 100 prints in the edition. Those that were for sale sold out in two days, including the framed print I intended to use as a display piece then keep for myself.
This particular image does not appear in the book; the one we used on an opening spread features an empty tool cabinet and moodier lighting. I arranged the lighting for this particular photo with a yearbook or school photo in mind and refer to the image as the “yearbook photo.” I wanted an image that presented the ensemble elegantly but honestly, without drama — a portrait. When people see this print they usually describe it as “amazing” or “incredible” and though I agree wholeheartedly with those comments, the image evokes different feelings for me. This particular image usually makes me smile in the same way that school photos of my children make me smile. Perhaps because this was one of the last photographs we took in the four-year project of documenting these objects, and as such the image captures a period of time in the same way that the annual school photos do. But also because after working with the photo as much as I have in the last year, I revel in the tiniest of tiny details that I discovered when processing the image, like the grain of the workbench or the legible numbers on the wire gauge or the fact that if you look closely, you can see the felt we used underneath the cabinet to protect the workbench top.
Details such as these are present in the print because as an art print, this edition is as close to flawless as I can get. The photo was taken with a 37 megapixel camera rented specifically for special shots like the front cover and other images intended for large-format reproduction. The image file is 450 megabytes and has been painstakingly optimized for output on one of the finest archival art papers made, Hahnemühle Photo Rag — a 100 percent cotton paper with a weight of 308 gsm. My professional-grade printer uses 12 inks (normal presses use four), which produce an image with subtleties you’d never get on a printing press. And though my printer can produce about five of these prints in one hour, it can take 30 hours or more for a final product to be ready. I let each print rest at least 24 hours before checking it for scratches and printer errors. If all is well with the print, I proceed with hand numbering and signing (a process that has yielded many “artist’s proofs” — my hand can’t keep up with my brain and I end up botching the title or print number over and over), then spray the print with a protective spray which fixes the ink and makes the print a bit more abrasion-resistant. The print then dries for another few hours, after which it is placed in an archival plastic bag with some instructions for taking care of the print.
There are only 18 of these prints left in the edition, and I’m finishing up production work on them now. They will cost $100 each as they did at the exhibit, though for these last prints I’m including a large-diameter art tube and will ship them to you via FedEx at cost (domestic addresses only). If you are attending the LAP open house in Covington, Ky., in March, I’ll bring yours there to hand to you personally. Here’s how this is going to work:
Starting at 9 a.m. CST on Monday, Feb. 29, interested parties can send an email to studleyartprint@amoebr.io. In this email you should provide your full name and address (if you’re picking up your print in Covington, just type “Covington”). The reply address for your mail should be valid; if you have an email address you’d like me to use for a PayPal invoice, please specify that as well. No need to write a note or anything – just the above information is fine.
Don’t send an email beforehand; the email address won’t work until the time specified above. If you’re a friend who can contact me through other channels, I’d love to “hook you up” with a print but I won’t — I’d like everyone to have an equal chance at these last prints.
I will turn off the email address after I receive mails from 30 interested parties (if you send a mail and it bounces, ordering for the edition is closed).
The first 18 responders are guaranteed a print; everyone else will be on a waiting list in order of the timestamp on their email. If something doesn’t work out with any of those first 18, I’ll proceed down the list until all 18 prints are spoken for.
By 9 p.m. on the evening of Feb. 29th, I will send a PayPal invoice to your email address. You will have until 9 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2nd, to pay the invoice before your print is offered to the next person on the waiting list.
All prints that are being shipped will be shipped by March 9th.
Apologies if this seems like we’re exchanging classified information in a virtual parking garage. Really it’s just an email and timely follow through.
I’ll never say “never” but it’s unlikely I’ll be producing more art prints from the Virtuoso project — they simply take too much time to make and sell individually. Lost Art Press has found a means to fulfill poster orders easily (in case you’re wondering, the lack of reliable fulfillment is why this art print isn’t an official LAP offering) and we’re looking into ways to make other images from the image archive available on a more mass-produced product. So if you aren’t able to procure one of these extra-special art prints, maybe we’ll have something for your wall later this year. Feel free to contact me, though, if you are interested purchasing (entire) limited editions of other photographs of mine or if you have an interesting photographic project in mind.
There is great power in naming things, but there is also violence.
A few years ago I was driving to dinner with a fellow furniture maker, and he asked me this question: “Do you consider yourself a writer or a woodworker?”
I hate this question, but I also hate looking like a wanker.
I replied, “I’m a writer who builds furniture.”
“Ah!” he said. “You said the word ‘writer’ first. So that’s more important to you?” He raised the tone of his voice at the end of the sentence like it was a question. But it wasn’t.
So I bristle a bit when people tell me what I am and what I am not. At times I build cubbyholes, but I won’t be put into one. After writing “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” in 2011, a fair number of blowhards declared that I wasn’t an anarchist. Anarchists, they explained, are explicitly anti-capitalist. They seek to overthrow the government. They embrace violence.
Saying that you have to be committed to violence to be an anarchist is like saying you have to oppress Africans to be a Christian, or you have to own a gun to be an American. It’s nonsensical.
The truth is, I barely discuss my beliefs about the world in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” There might be only two or three people in this world who have heard my unfiltered thoughts on how the world works, and I plan to keep that number in the single digits as long as I live.
Do I have problems with authority – liturgical, corporate and governmental? Absolutely. Do I routinely disregard laws and mores because I think they’re at odds with human decency? You bet. Am I going to write about my behavior in a book that is already quite difficult to ship to military bases because of its title?
Do you think I’m stupid?
So if I don’t espouse the full details of my personal belief system, why bring up anarchism at all? Two reasons.
It’s the right word to describe me. I’m an anarchist and here is a book about my tool chest. Here is a second book of my furniture designs. Beyond those simple declarations, the goal of the books is to point to a path that doesn’t get discussed much in Western society.
During my training as a journalist we were urged to tell “both sides of every story.” After working as a journalist, the problem I discovered was that there are usually about a dozen sides to every story. It’s just that most of those ideas aren’t discussed at the country club.
Ideas such as: Organizations dehumanize and homogenize us. Modern production methods enslave us to a cycle of making nothing and consuming everything.
But these ideas, which I discuss in both books, are only starting points. If you have a brain it’s easy to see where the trail head leads. Like working with hand tools, it can be a difficult path to travel, but it can take you almost anywhere.
The second reason I couch these simple ideas inside work-a-day books on tools and building furniture is that I refuse to become part of the circle-jerk clique of writers who obsess on discussing Craft, its Demise and How to Fix Things.
In my 25 years of hanging out with woodworkers, I’ve never once heard someone say: “I just finished reading David Pye’s ‘The Nature and Art of Workmanship,’ and now all I want to do is carve bowls.” It just doesn’t happen.
Don’t get me wrong. Discussing craft is important. I just don’t think you should talk about it much until you have done it – a lot.
The solution to “fix” everything – for lack of a better word – is not in words. It’s in your fingers. Pick up the tools, and the answers to these questions will become apparent. Make something, and you will understand more about craft than all of the books written about its doom.
Yesterday I had a tape measure clipped to my pants pocket, and a young woman in a store asked me what I did for a living. When I told her I made furniture, she gushed at length about how that was all she’d ever wanted to do. As a child she built all of her Barbie furniture. Now she watched television programs and read books about woodworking every night, but she didn’t want to go back to school to train as a furniture maker.
“You don’t have to go back to school,” I told her.
“But how will I learn it?” she asked.
“By doing what you did when you were a little girl: Pick up the tools and use them.”
Every word I write is aimed at one thing: To make you crazy to pick up the tools. They are the answer to everything that’s wrong with our lives and with our world. With tools you can fix things. You can make things. You can escape from a job that is slowly killing you.
With tools you can build a life that doesn’t depend on your next annual review and whether or not you managed to wear out the knees in your pants while groveling for a raise.
I don’t care if you call that anarchism or not. In fact, I recommend that you don’t.
So stay tidy. Be friendly. Build things instead of buying them. You’ll know what to do next.
First a little history, then a disclaimer and then we play the moviefilm.
When I wrote “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” in 2011 I steered clear of discussing brand names of tools because I didn’t want the book to be a tool-buying guide for 2011. My hope was it would be useful to woodworkers getting started in the craft long after I’m dead.
But people asked me: What specific tools are in your chest? So we made a short DVD that had a one-hour tour of the tools in my chest on that summer day in 2011. Plus I assembled a five-minute slideshow that was an overview of the chest’s construction process. Finally, we added a document of sources for the tools and a SketchUp drawing of the chest.
We sold the DVD for a few years, but it was plagued by technical problems. Our DVD presser at the time couldn’t seem to make an error-free disc, so we switched vendors and then ultimately began giving the discs away as commemorative drink coasters/safety Ninja throwing stars instead.
So last night I loaded up the videos on our Vimeo channel and we now offer them free of charge.
Disclaimer: The tools in my chest have changed since 2011. So please don’t ask me to compare this, that or the other to then or now. We’re producing a new tour of the chest for the five-year anniversary that also will be free.
Why did the tools change? In many cases I tried to get something more accessible. I loved my Barrett plow plane, for example, but it was intimidating to beginners (especially the price tag). So I switched to a Stanley 45, which I bought for $50. (And no, I don’t know what happened to Dan Barrett and his planemaking company.)
In addition to the Milk Paint appendix in the “The Anarchist’s Design Book” there are a few more resources that the new milk painter might find useful:
Chapter 25 on Finishing in “Chairmaker’s Notebook” by Peter Galbert, available from Lost Art Press.
Peter’s blog Chair Notes has tons of information including this article on using milk paint, “Bullet Proof Finish.”
Chris recently completed a DVD for a bookcase where he covers the use of milk paint. The DVD (or dowload) is available from Popular Woodworking.
For the adventurous painter and finisher:
Brian Anderson, our compatriot in France, experimented with a milk paint recipe and reported his results in “The Mad Chef’s Milk Paint Gets A Shellacking” post here.
A big thank you to Richard Byrne and Ryan Mooney for providing a wealth of links to painting and finishing resources in yesterday’s post, “Milk Paint – A Short History.”
