Fixing a Run Without Starting Again
I was staring at a walnut sideboard last Tuesday, the kind of piece that’s supposed to represent the culmination of three weeks of meticulous sanding, only to see a single,…
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A Test Piece From the Same Board
I can still smell the sharp, chemical sting of that walnut oil from 1998, a scent that still triggers a mild sense of dread whenever I walk into a workshop.…
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Notes on the Bench for Tomorrow
I was hunched over a scrap of birch plywood last Tuesday, the smell of sawdust thick in the air, when I realized I couldn’t remember why I’d decided against the…
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Measuring a Piece to Understand It
I was staring at a mahogany sideboard last Tuesday, surrounded by the wreckage of a failed joinery attempt, realizing that my tape measure was lying to me. Most people think…
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Studying an Eighteenth Century Chair
I was sitting on my studio floor last Tuesday, surrounded by a graveyard of failed joinery and half-finished sketches, when I realized I was doing it again: looking at a…
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Picking Up a Build After Ten Days
I remember sitting on the floor of my first studio, surrounded by the scent of freshly sawn walnut and the rhythmic, aggressive hum of a table saw, when a client…
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The Pile I Cannot Throw Away
I was staring at a pile of walnut scraps last Tuesday, the kind of jagged, uneven leftovers that most people would call “character” or “potential.” To me, they just felt…
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Insuring Work in Transit
I remember the smell of scorched maple and the sudden, sickening silence that follows a blown fuse in a crowded studio. It was 2004, and I was staring at a…
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Influence Without Imitation
I was digging through a box of rejected walnut joinery samples last Tuesday—the ones I keep precisely because they failed—when I realized how much of modern design is just a…
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Where a Personal Language Comes From
I spent most of my morning in the studio, staring at a pile of rejected walnut joints that I’ve kept for nearly a decade. Most design books will tell you…
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