Cleaning Up Without Losing Flat
I was staring at a pile of walnut shavings and dried wood glue yesterday, thinking about that ridiculous notion that a clean studio is a sign of a productive designer.…
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A Template Worth Keeping
I was staring at a pile of sawdust and three different iterations of a chair leg last Tuesday, wondering why I felt so paralyzed by a blank sheet of paper.…
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Cutting and Refining a Curve
I was staring at a slab of cherry last Tuesday, my hand trembling just a fraction of a millimeter above the line, paralyzed by the fear of a jagged edge.…
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Gallery Commission and Your Price
I remember sitting in a drafty studio in my late twenties, staring at a prototype for a chair that had cost me three months of rent and a dozen failed…
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A Chair That Belonged to Someone
I was clearing out a corner of the studio last Tuesday—one of those corners where the “failures” live—when I bumped into a prototype for a walnut chair I designed in…
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The Table in a Family’s Memory
I was clearing out a corner of my workshop last Tuesday—the graveyard of “almosts”—when I found the prototype for the walnut sideboard I finished three years ago. It’s a heavy,…
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Designing Something Hands Touch Daily
I have a box in the corner of my studio filled with what I call “the ghosts”—brass castings and turned wood scraps that failed to make the cut. Most design…
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Twelve Minutes to Fix It
The smell of PVA glue is usually a sign of progress, but that specific, cloying scent hitting the back of my throat usually means I’ve just made a massive mistake.…
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Three Glues and Their Working Times
I have a shelf in my studio dedicated entirely to what I call “the graveyard”—a collection of failed joints and splintered mahogany that serves as a constant reminder of my…
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Making Something for Sixty Years
I was clearing out a corner of my studio last Tuesday when I tripped over a stack of birch plywood scraps—remnants of a chair that failed because the joinery was…
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