furniture

• Urban Hardwoods

  Seattle’s Urban Hardwoods make furniture with a variety of reclaimed woods, primarily urban trees felled for a variety of reasons, from disease to construction to weather. Some of their work is very contemporary in design, but even if modern isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of beautiful grain and hand-work to see on their site.

  Urban Hardwoods was founded in 2002 to reclaim urban trees and to make
  enduring furniture that honors the natural beauty of the wood. (The company) grew naturally out of the vision of … founder Jim Newsom, who began salvaging beached logs with his tugboat from the
  shores of Elliot Bay in the late 1990s. What he discovered in the
  process of acquiring and using urban wood is the incredible beauty of
  local trees. Combining these materials with fresh designs and
  exceptional craftsmanship is a synergistic endeavor with delightful
  results.

• Classic Woodsmith

  Mike Skertich recently added a line of Greene & Greene-inspired designs to his various A&C patterned products. Named after some of the great bungalow neighborhoods of the west, his Hillcrest, Westmoreland, Piedmont and Arroyo tables include more delicate features than his previous work and many small details – from cloud lifts to inlays and plugs – taken from Greene & Greene. Mike also produces a few light fixtures [1 / 2], a clock, a tall cabinet and a Tichenor-styled bench  in a very recognizeable Greene & Greene style.

• ID me, please!

  

  Reader Rosemary asks if anyone could help her identify or value this tabouret that has been in her family for some time, and which she recently received from her aunt. The almost-unreadable label on the underside says "Stickley Brothers Company," and she tells us that "Gustav Stickley" is also stamped on the underside. In my very limited experience I had not seen the two marks together. She’s interested in knowing when the item was made, its proper name or number, and what it might be worth. I will forward her any information sent to me.

• Edwin Lutyens

  

  A greatly admired craftsman whose masterworks contrasted – at least in the public imagination of the time – with his somewhat unorthodox public persona and his terrific sense of humor, Edwin Lutyens was an architect, furniture designer, populist and great joke-teller. Often said to be the single person most responsible for the planning and construction of New Delhi’s entire city center (and the master plan that was followed in that city well into the 1970s), Lutyens is perhaps best known today for the Viceroy’s House, a particularly impressive landmark which is now the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the President of India. Lutyens is also responsible for St. Jude’s, one of the prettiest churches in the UK . Dozens of his finest structures still stand today in London and elsewhere. His influence to the Arts & Crafts movement is, unfortunately, often under-reported. His skill at integrating monumental scale and classical motif with the simple and straightforward, and his tremendous respect for the craftspeople who worked under him and a very strong belief in the importance of craft and handwork frequently made its way into the details of his buildings. Candia Lutyens continues the family business with her design firm in London today; she specializes in building many items of furniture designed by her grandfather, work that was shadowed by his more well-known skill as architect.

• gustavstickley.com

  

  Pete Maloney in Norcross GA points us to his site, which in addition to links to the dealers’ various auctions also includes a collaborative antique shop that brings together selected items from a number of different dealers. Selections from Stuart Solomon‘s wonderful shop in Northhampton MA are featured, as are pottery and metalwork items from Jack Pap; Barbara Gerr, a dealer in Roseville pottery out of Absecon NJ is also part of the group, as are Pearce Fox / Fox Mission in Philadelphia and webmaster Pete Maloney himself, who specializes in all sorts of Arts & Crafts ceramics.

• Contemporary Woodwork

  I’ve been writing about contemporary furnituremakers and designers – many of them woodworkers – over at Moco San Francisco for a few months now. Most of these folks’ work is not, aesthetically, born of the Arts and Crafts Movement; however, I thought that those readers who are woodworkers might be interested in the following:

  • Jared Rusten
  • Berkeley Mills
  • Jason Lees Design
• Trolling Craigslist for Bargains

  With the recent addition of a DSL connection to our home, I have started using an RSS reader to check various feeds every day. One nice feature of the Craigslist bulletin-board system is that any search term can be saved as an RSS feed – for example, I search the San Francisco and Sacramento boards for "mission," "oak," "craftsman," "prairie," and "stickley" every day. I’ve seen a number of interesting items, and since you’re usually buying from individuals – often people cleaning out relatives’ estates – and not dealers, the prices are pretty good. For example: a Berkeley Mills cherry bed for way below list; an A&C drafting or side table; an oak rocking chair; a brass fireplace wood holder; an L&JG design tabouret; a repro lamp from Restoration Hardware.

• Searching for a Desk

  A friend was shopping for a half-dozen Craftsman desks for her new office and found a huge range of new items at an equally wide range of prices:

  • a simple mahogany library table/desk with an organizer and drop-down keyboard tray, which was available from a dozen retailers for a similar price ($700-$800)
  • Louis Fry’s frankly amazing and ornate African wenge-inlaid wide 3-drawer desk
  • David Gray’s gorgeous maple, koa, walnut and ebony writing desk
  • a very conservative and clean corner desk from Hardwood Artisans
  • a dozen different desks (fall front, library, pedestal, and more) from Harvest House
  • various el-cheapo models
• Purdy’s Furniture & Cabinetry

  

  Tatyana Epstein wrote to tell us about Strother Purdy, a cabinetmaker living and working in Connecticut. Purdy’s work is eclectic, often in the Craftsman and Nouveau traditions although his materials are sometimes unorthodox, favoring the curly white oak and cherry of the Northeast and its Shaker tradition over more traditional oaks of the Arts & Crafts movement.

  Purdy now has his own business after various other pursuits – teaching English in Slovakia, graduate school at NYU and working at Taunton Press (both at their Fine Woodworking magazine and later in the woodworking books department). His shop in Bridgewater is open every day but Sunday.

• Sotheby’s: Greene & Greene

  Rich Muller notes that "many of the pieces that have been in the Huntington’s Scott gallery are now up for auction (through Sotheby’s). There are a lot of high-resolution images that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Get your checkbooks out, or at least download some of these images!  There is also information on each lot." Catalogs are US$43; the least expensive item up for auction is significantly more expensive.

  Of special note, at least to those interested in the graphic arts: some of the most expensive cuts (of such a small size, at least) ever.