The Wiggling Post
Stories In the Wood
&
The Life of a Woodwright Made Plain
|
It all started as an idea to write a book on furniture design.
Shaker-style to be specific; for the simple fact that, left to my own devices, it is the look of my work. Shaker style refers to furniture - or anything else really - that is reminiscent of the simplistic lifestyle created by the Shaker religious sect of the early to mid 1800s - more formally known as the United Society of Believers. The furniture made by the Shakers themselves has become extremely valuable, highly sought after, and widely emulated. However, as I began to write about what I was doing out in the dust and sifering closely as to why I go this way or that with the construction, or look, of a piece, I started to notice that the choices I make are not so much design concepts as they are the result of a collection of stories in my head. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify - never scrafice integrity or strength. This way of doing and being is to see through a Shaker's eyes and goes to the core of their furniture. What they discovered by simplifying and subtracting in their communities is grace; and that is what we so admire in their furniture. A distinctive line with a supple bearing is as clear a mark of a Shaker community as it is an endearing feature of their furniture. So, The Wiggling Post is a collection of stories, some of which weave a tale of how and why I design the way I do. But, I should add, that in developing these stories over the past half dozen years, it has become clear that grace is the line I seek - & not just in furniture. And If this line can be seen at all, it would be in the telling of a simple tale. A more recent story Back Roads to Meliora & a developing one, Desert Mesa, in fact break away from furniture development almost completely, delving deeper into a life made plain by the Wood. This is a track followed by the builders who lived and worked in the Shaker communities - so I feel I am in good company. These folks pursued, with a daily grind, a communal notion of simplicity in all things. It was this conviction that inspired the grind and created the yarns that bled over into when, where, and how to strike the wood. If you could go to the heart of a Shaker builder - to what guided them through the wood - I believe you would experience what they remember about simple things on a regular day; and you would experience the day by how they see. So, whether it be installing that rebuilt loom, sharpening and adjusting the bottomplow's coulter for spring plowing, or a memory of the moment taken to watch an evening breeze carry a cloud's shadow across the far field of winter wheat - the details of what the day is remembered with, can ride along the edges of the wood. So, this is not a book on design concepts with lines, arrows and pictures, though such things grow out of the tales; it is a story that includes stories that guide me in crafting furniture that sometimes manages to hold that delicate balance between engineering and artistry. In the contents (click 'Next') the story titles are links to to those stories. Titles that are not links are unposted works in progress. Some stories have pieces of furniture that have been built around them; some have ideas of furniture attached to them; while others are only tales 'of the simplist thing'. The first, Broome Straw, is a piece with furniture in mind. Accompanying the story are photographs that summon images stored in my mind's eye. The simple drawing of the linen press serves as a skeleton for the project. There are also rough sketches of how the carvings on the panels could run off the panels up into the drawer. With the carvings, & a layering of the door panels with different woods, it would be my hope to recreate that winter morning of orange & white & ice. |