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Posted by: Asa Christiana

Studio Furniture of the Renwick Gallery by Oscar P. Fitzgerald
Smithsonian American Art Museum in association with Fox Chapel Publishing, 2008.
$35.00; 224 pp.
Buy this Book

The best thing about museum collections is that the pieces are all actually there, to be experienced in person. That’s also the problem with collections: that the pieces must actually be there. So any collection that purports to be representative of a major movement ends up hamstrung by logistical realities. I’m guessing here, but the seminal piece or piece must not be available in many cases.

In this beautiful, wide-format soft cover, Oscar Fitzgerald does an admirable job of describing each maker’s importance to the movement, but the book is only as good as the collection itself, and time and again, I found a maker’s signature pieces missing. Garry Knox Bennett, John Dunnigan, Wharton Esherick, Michael Hurwitz, Kristina Madsen, Jere Osgood, the names are right but the pieces weren’t.

The curators had better luck with some than others. Wendell Castle and Sam Maloof got full justice. And I was exposed to wonderful pieces and makers I had never seen before. On the other hand, recent artists were included whose work is, frankly, mediocre. I saw a blasé version of a Windsor chair, a bad knockoff of a Maloof rocker, and a mediocre children’s chair by someone who was briefly a student and apprentice and then left the field. And some true heavyweights were left out: David Lamb and Terry Moore, with their unmistakably contemporary but always sure handed takes on period furniture; Brian Newell and Michael Puryear, who do the same thing with Asian and African motifs, respectively. Check past back covers of Fine Woodworking for others.

I came away thinking that the way to do a definitive book on the studio furniture movement is not to base it on one exhibit, even one at the nation’s greatest museum. Why be at the mercy of a curator’s whimsy and the realities of collection when all you need are photos of the pieces, not the pieces themselves? I’ll forward that thought to our books department here at the Taunton Press. Maybe they’ll take up the mantle.

Posted by: Asa Christiana

This month I visited the Marc Adams School of Woodworking for the first time. I’ve seen most of the country’s woodworking schools in my travels, but somehow I had missed the largest one. The occasion was a special class led by Garry Bennett, where he and 7 volunteers would build one of his signature trestle tables, to be auctioned off for charity.

Main attraction. FWW went to the Marc Adams school to film a special event with Garry Bennett (right, above). He and a group of skilled volunteers built one of his signature trestle tables for a charity auction.

We were there to make a video for Finewoodworking.com, which will cover the step-by-step process, and also to gather information for detailed drawings and a design article in the magazine. Both article and video will appear in 2009.

Kelly Dunton (one of our art staff) and I drove about a half-hour south of Indianapolis, turned onto rural route, and watched corn stalks whiz by for about five minutes. Mesmerized by the blur, we drove right by the school. All you see from the road is a tan-colored metal building, and I was thinking, "This is it?" But appearances were deceiving.

This is it. The Marc Adams School of Woodworking doesn't look like much from the road, just a row of big buildings.

Well equipped. A step inside reveals wonderfully equipped machine rooms.

That first large building conceals others attached behind it, and a step inside revealed a massive and wonderfully equipped teaching facility, three of them in fact. Two of the huge benchroom/classrooms have their own large machine rooms alongside. The third benchroom is for classes on handwork, or "non-aggressive woodworking," as Marc calls it. Paul Schurch was teaching marquetry and decorative veneering there the week we visited.

All told at MASW there are dozens of bandsaws, tablesaws, jointers, planers, drum sanders, lathes, and so on, of all sizes and makes--enough that no student had to wait to make a cut while I was there. All of the equipment also was tuned up and ready to go, jigs and sleds at the ready, and each was carefully equipped for safe operation. I counted nine new SawStop tablesaws. Marc told me that he accepts no handouts from manufacturers (they are offered, of course), but insists on choosing his own tools and machines and paying full price. "Education should be pure," he says.

To be fair, Marc Adams School doesn’t offer the one- or two-year programs some other schools do, designed to launch careers in pro furniture-making. And plenty of other schools attract top-notch instructors. (For FWW's directory of woodworking schools, click here.)

But Marc Adams rocks: Roomy buildings allow generous workspace throughout, workbenches are custom Lie-Nielsens, lumber is plentiful and well-sorted, and full-time staffers fan out to support the three classes: finding tools, bits, and blades; lending a quick hand to support an offcut; or adjusting the close-up cameras that project the instructor’s demonstrations onto flat-screen TVs.

One workroom. In one of three bench rooms, outfitted temporarily with heavy-duty lathes, Kerry Pierce's students each built a Shaker rocker.

One thing that sets the school apart is food, included in the tuition, a feature I haven’t seen at other woodworking schools. The kitchen staff prepares a tasty spread of Midwestern comfort food at lunchtime each day. And the free snacks, soda machine, and ice cream machine get steady traffic all day long. If I had to make a criticism of MASW, it is the weight I gained.

Chowing down. Tuition includes stick-to-your-ribs lunches and all-day drinks and snacks. Classes take turns coming into the cafeteria. 

After couple of days, I even began to appreciate the school’s quiet surroundings. Sure, there are nothing but cornfields for miles, but there is also nothing to distract you from the learning, the building, the camaraderie, and the great food. Every day felt full and productive. I met dozens of return customers from around the country.

Tuesday night is slide show and cookout night. That’s when I discovered the beautiful tree nursery and gazebos that Marc has created out back, with in-ground firepits, curvy walkways, and ground-level lighting. It is a cozy evening setting for making new friends and reconnecting with old ones.

Surprise out back. Behind the school are rows of trees and a nice area for evening cookouts and socializing.

The facilities are unmatched, but the best thing about the school is the personal touch. A few years back Marc dropped $20K-plus on a laser-engraving machine, and the "signs" are everywhere at the school. At the front of each bench, incoming students find a custom plaque with their name, hometown, and class name burned into it--marking their turf in the shop and providing a keepsake at the end of the week. Every class gets a group picture, other thoughtful gifts, and personal attention from Marc’s staff.

Personal touch. Each arriving student finds a custom plaque (inset) with his or her name, hometown, and class name burned into it, marking turf in the shop and providing a keepsake at the end of the week.

At Fine Woodworking we strive to do things right, to treat customers like friends, and to look at every decision through a long-range lens. In Marc Adams School I quickly recognized the same philosophy and the same dedication.

Asa Christiana is editor of Fine Woodworking.

Posted by: Anatole Burkin

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs by Joseph Cunningham
Yale University Press, 2008.
$65; 304 pp.
Buy this Book

Charles Rohlfs remains a lesser-known furniture designer from the Arts and Craft period, but his work is now fully cataloged in a new book and works by him will be on display in a traveling exhibition during mid-2009 to 2010.

“The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs,” by Joseph Cunningham, provides an in-depth look at the man who thumbed his nose at the tenets of Arts and Craft furniture as espoused by William Morris. While most of his contemporaries limited or avoided altogether any ornamentation on their work, and strived to build “honest” furniture with beefy, obvious joinery, Rohlfs was busy carving sinuous patterns on his pieces, mostly made of quartersawn white oak and frequently joined with screws covered up by plugs made to resemble pins.

Rohlfs’ work evokes many styles, from Victorian to Art Nouveau. His best pieces remind me of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and designs by the Greene brothers.

A native of Brooklyn, Rohlfs studied engineering, eventually ending up working for a stove factory in Buffalo, N.Y. He also tried his hand at acting, but the reviews were harsh. One critic described Rohlfs’ role in a tragedy as “screamingly funny instead of sad.”

He began dabbling in furniture making as a hobby in the late 1800s, then was encouraged to do more by friends who wanted to buy his work. With the support of a successful wife, mystery novelist Anna Katharine Green, a new career was born.

Rohlfs did not drink the Arts and Crafts movement’s Kool-Aid and in fact mocked their ideology, in particular the Roycrofters (run by Elbert Hubbard in nearby East Aurora, N.Y.). In 1902, Rohlfs described his own shop as a place where “no profit sharing is practiced and none of us wear long hair.”

A well-researched, scholarly work, the book features a generous collection of weird, wacky, and wonderful pieces designed by a man who had his own unique vision and interpretation of Arts and Crafts.

Posted by:
Fine Woodworking Editors

As part of last week's Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event that took place here at Fine Woodworking, we asked you for questions about handtools. We promised answers from the experts at the show. Here they are:

Building Windows
John Ladd wanted a source of information about making windows. For that, we turned to our colleagues at Fine Homebuilding magazine, which published an article on making your own window sash. Here's a link: http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/how-to/articles/making-window-sash.aspx?LangType=1033&ac=fp

Drying Lumber
Garrett Blair asked, "What is the fastest way to dry a piece of green wood out to make it suitable for turning, other than air drying" One common alternative to air-drying wood destined to be turned is to swaddle it in paper grocery bags, which not only absorb moisture from the wood but also modulate the rate of drying. Here's a link to an article: http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com/paper-bag-drying.html

Preventing Corrosion
"Islandman," a new woodworker in Florida, wanted ot know how to minimize salt-air corrosion on his new hand tools. For that, we turned to Tom Lie-Nielsen, who recorded his answer. Take a look: