Some Definitions?

Well, let's see if I can do this without rufflin' too many feathers. I'm going to attempt to talk about some definitions because it may be important for those out looking for a furnituremaker who may also be somewhat confused by the different kinds of people who are making custom furniture. Actually there are differences that are critical in making decisions.

As for the ruffled feathers part, all of those folks out there making things are usually doing it for some passionate reason - or at least they were at one time. Those MBA graduates from U of Michigan normally aren't planning their lives around making furniture for a living, they are driven by some other muse, more like making a lot of money - won't find it here. With that in mind all of you other furnituremakers out there need to know I have a deep respect for your motivations choosing to do this 'making things' for a living thing, it's not easy, not all fun, and we're all a little different - kind of like people, huh?....

Let's talk about 'furnituremaking'. There are furniture designers, there are woodworkers, there are artisans, there are furniture artists. Whew, what's this all about and who cares? Well, it probably doesn't matter a lot to some but it might to others who are after something but don't know who they are talking to. I'm going to head into some sticky, messy territory here, but please know there are no clear distinctions, there is no place where one kind starts and another stops making it clear what they have to offer. So, I'll do a little with some generic descriptions. All of these groups do some of this and some of that and some do it all, but what I'm exploring here is more relative in terms of the initial motivations and training. Well, here goes, but I know I'm sticking my pretty shoes into some rather brown and smelly stuff....it's not my intention to make one kind look better or worser, just make intentions clear and how that might manifest itself in the kind of product that is produced.

"Woodworkers": Passionately driven, will do anything with wood and feel like they are a cabinetmaker when it's right, a furnituremaker when it's right, a finish carpenter, a carpenter, etc. They love working with wood and sometimes specialize at this or that and get very good at that specialization but probably aren't great at the others most likely because they haven't been trained to do so and haven't put the time in. You won't find me building a house any time soon, and if you do it certainly wouldn't be very efficient, more head scratching than work getting done. With the economy like it is right now I just might try to pass myself off as one of them - watch out.

"Furniture Designers": Usually had some education at a design school, probably more motivated at production with a profit motive. This where you'll find the trends happening in all of the current magazines. At those schools craftsmanship isn't generally considered at the forefront of intention, but they have an understanding of the history of furniture beginning in the mid 20th century with a clear description of that from a manufacturers perspective. They are familiar with the latest technologies and materials. The industry is about production, materials, and processes being paramount to the direction of this business model. Hand crafting is not held in the highest regard because it requires too much skill which is experiential, and just plain takes too much time to make. Wood can be an annoyance rather than a resource for aesthetics because it is so gall darned persnickity when it expands and contracts and you have to deal with things like matching grain and color differences from one tree to the next - why can't they just grow oak trees that are brown? Gimme a CNC machine and a piece of aluminum, stick some upholstery on it and call it good...and the money flows, right? Maybe.

[see it's getting messy, huh? Don't get me wrong I don't know how many times I would have taken a piece of aluminum over a chunk of maple that just wouldn't stay straight, no matter how many times I flattened it out. I can't help myself, let me digress for a minute with a little story of my own history. I was a young art student at San Francisco State back in the early 70's, full of myself like most art students, who had a curiosity about everything to make. SF State had a seperate school in Industrial Design- actually a very good program. That was a world I had no concept of. It was run by a barrel of a guy named Dr. John Kasay, not the warm and fuzzy sort I was used to over in the Art Dept (we were a bunch of spoiled coddled kids MAKING HIGH ART, I mean we were "Painters and Sculptors", but don't tell anyone I said that). The ID students were more like Marines, they knew their tools and their materials and their processes. I don't think we would have stood arm in arm together in the protests with S.I. Hayakawa at the time (SF State/Viet Nam, you know?). Anyway, a guy named Arthur Espenet Carpenter had a crafts guild in Bolinas and he was one of those people in the 60's and 70's who headed off on his own tangent and started making furniture that didn't look like amoebas or Scandinavian stuff - know what I mean?- well Art was asked to come over to SF State and do a combined class with the ID students and the Art students. My gooness that first day was interesting. Here was 6 guys looking at 6 guys without the slightest thread of recognition, circling, sizing each other up wondering what language the other spoke but sure as hell wouldn't sit next to one of 'them'. As for me, I was of course above all of that and proceeded to assume I knew what was the truth, the first day I found out the truth. One thing I learned was you don't get one of those electronic glue gun thingies too close to your midsection or you won't have any kids, among other bad results not related to furniture making... Well, it was one of my more informative years in school -Art made those other guys make tables that looked like "leaves" and such, and made guys like me make tables that stayed together without invoking the name of Jesus or Gracie Slick. I made a table that only had one leg and required a wall to lean on. In the end we all ended up friends and learned an extraordinary amount of life and 'woodworking' from each other. Art Carpenter has passed on now (we stayed in touch now and then, what a great guy). Don't know about Dr Kasay, but you should be able to find out a lot about Art, turned out he was a pretty famous guy in the world of artisan makers around the world (Bolinas Craft Guild). Kasay turned out to be a great teacher and even wrote the definitive book on Shaker furniture and it's relationship to their religious philosophy - a beautiful book and the first of its kind in the 70's, no one had heard of Shaker furniture in those days.]

But back to business.

"The Artisan": Might have studied at School of the Redwoods or North Bennet Street School, that sort of place, or read Fine Woodworking magazine cover to cover every month (that was my training). It's all about the CRAFT, an admiration for the love of working wood, hand work, and joinery at a very high level of expertise (for me it's a pain the waddyacallit at times, one of those necessary evils like castor oil). Here in Portland, Oregon we have Gary Rogowski at Northwest Woodworking School doing a wonderful job of passing on this skill that is fast dying off. It is pure passion, the driven need to make something well by hand. To learn all aspects of wood and it's vagueries and frustrations. A lust for the next gorgeous piece of figured wood and how to make it be gentle and compliant in your hands rather than a bucking and screaming young stallion with places to go.

"The Furniture Artist": Now here's an interesting sort. Whatever happened to sitting on a chair to rest your bones, or setting the table for dinner? Isn't that enough? Nah. They gotta shake things up. Gotta have FUN, make you THINK if you're gonna do it. A "15 Minute Chair", are you kidding? Their aspirations are The Museum of Modern Art! Well, except they'd also like you to buy it because their spouse is on their back to pay the rent. Oh, and so they can make another one. With the advent of internet communication they were finally able to establish an immediate ready made network of people all over the world. It was pretty amazing watching (and of course I have to admit I inhaled). It actually had roots going back to the mid century but was really a bunch of individual maverick types doing it all by themselves. Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima fit in as well. Later (60's) came Sam Maloof, Art Carpenter, but I think it was Wendell Castle who really kicked butt and inspired folks to take chances in a more provocative rather than just a beautiful way. Plenty of others along the way, mostly on the East Coast but out here in the West we had the "ORGANICS". I was one of them in the 70's - sure had a lot of fun. The movement ended up a with lot of milk paint and found objects like old truck springs and over sized screws - things moved and went in the wrong direction a lot. I kind of labeled it as the "milk paint, make me smile" stuff. Pretty much centered around the Furniture Society, a wonderful orgnization that has conferences around the country and Canada each year. I was a member early on, I was pretty hungry for interaction and excited to see who was doing what next.

But I didn't completely fit in to their descriptive very well (I refused to use milk paint...altho I finally did a wonderful desk last year for a client and used milk paint! but keep it to yourself it will ruin my image), but I don't really fit in any of the other categories of furniture makers completely either. I find interest in all of it, and incorporate all of it at one time or another into my designs as long as I satisfy my reverence for the beautiful object - it can be fun, it can be conceptual, doesn't always require functionality, but for me it must pay respect to an historical narrative, an awareness of the history of why furniture design started out a long time ago as a rock or a fallen log that needed a little berry juice and ended up where we are today.

Enough for today.