Category: Blog

finishing up a couple of claro walnut slab projects next week. above is the slab we started with for a dining table that will go in a half round room about 10′ in diameter … the drawing is below. click the photos to enlarge them …here’s the finished table .. the story is below typically before i actually purchase the slab, i will crop it to size in photoshop and often, can erase the dimensions with the ‘rubber stamp’ tool … that gives us and the client and idea of the final shape. in this case, i actually made a full size cardboard template for then to try in the room for a while … here’s the drawing …and the model below, with a …

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May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

Seth with an old nail apron. What a combination – Star wars and Mule Hide Roofing It’s 6AM and five year old Seth, sitting beside me on the couch wrapped in his favorite blanket, looks up and says, “Poppy, can we go downstairs?” “Downstairs” is Seth’s word for my basement workshop. It’s a place where he can play with toys unlike anything from the McGiant toy store. “Downstairs” contains cigar boxes with string, old pulleys, hinges, and rubber bands. There are bins filled with cut offs, and the joy of double stick tape, and nails and hammers, and Poppy never tells him to stop making noise. He’s always dusting off some box …

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May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

I’m excited to announce the launching of a new website, http://www.byhandandeye.com. Jim Tolpin and I have teamed up again to create an on-line resource for woodworkers to improve their design skills. The new website will be the home of an on-line design workshop series (slated for release in early May 2016) as well as plenty of practical layout and design related articles and video clips about design. We also have plans to use the site as a platform for gathering a woodworking design community and we look forward to rolling that out in coming months. I’ll continue writing here on this blog, but I am delighted to be working closely with Jim again…

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May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

Tucked away in an alcove in the Springfield Museum of Art this 19th century desk begs more questions than answers. The form itself is typical of furniture built in a rural setting by a cabinetmaker who sparingly added a few touches of ornament in arches above the doorways and a few curves on the base apron. Then something wild happened. Another artisan, possibly 50 – 100 years later carved the existing desk lid and chest facade with a riot of poppy flowers and vines. If that was not enough, they put an exclamation point on this oddity and ebonized the carved panels. The museum attendant had no idea of the story behind it and one can only guess. The carving is expertly…

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May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

Richard applying the last touches on a finish process with too many steps to count. We’ve heard the unbelievable stories about how workers of yesteryear cranked out huge amounts of high quality work in an insanely short period of time. There’s no way to confirm the exploits of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, but I can share with you the work of one amazing chair maker. I stopped by Richard Grell’s shop today to see an order of chairs and tables he’s been building all winter. Here’s a peek at the 54 chairs and nine tea tables that will ship this week. Every part, every spindle, and chair seat fashioned by hand. Richard did call …

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May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

Three on a hill by Barb Walker My lovely wife Barb is a painter and when the weather turns mild you can find her outside with her easel and paints. She’s helped me to see the world through a painter’s eyes and it’s helped me dig deeper into this design language of the artisans. Here’s a link to an insightful article – It was my understanding there would be no Math – about the underlying design in a painting by one of the most outstanding contemporary impressionists in America, Anne Blair Brown. There’s much in the article that applies to furniture design.  If you would like to learn more about the underlying design in furniture, …

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May 20, 2016May 20, 2016