woodworking

• Dana Robes Craftsman Rocker

  
  update 09.02.07: I have been informed that a) Dana Robes furniture is no longer in business as of 09.06, and that Eric Gesler left the firm in 2002.

  I wrote about Dana Robes once before, but I just wanted to point out a beautiful Craftsman rocker that is in their most recent mail-order catalog. The chair was designed by Eric Gesler, the head designer at Dana Robes (he also teaches workshops at their Enfield, New Hampshire workshop), and is comes in either cherry, ash, oak or maple. Most of their work is orthodox Shaker, but this pieces (and some of their custom built-ins) has very strong Craftsman lines, although stretched out a bit in a sort of compromise with its makers’ Shaker background. The rocker sells for about $2000.

• J. D. Lohr

  Jeffry Lohr is a woodworker and educator living and working near Valley Forge, PA. His large studio houses a regular workshop series priced at various levels for both the serious student as well as the hobbyist;  J. D. offers a solid machine-based 48-hour (week long) course for beginners through much more advanced students. Other educational opportunities include two-year apprenticeships.

  His own work is very strongly influenced both by Prairie and Craftsman traditions, and many of his original designs merge elements of Asian and traditional American Craftsman styles and such Prairie elements as fine spindlework and the more cubic, grid-based geometry of Frank Lloyd Wright and other furnituremakers of the Prairie style. His casework is particularly interesting, showing an interesting mix of Mackintosh’s Glasgow style and the Japanese-influenced cloud lifts and soft edges popularized by Greene and Greene.

  If you are near Valley Forge and are a woodworker youself, you will also find his wood gallery – and his recommendations of various area woodsellers – particularly useful.

• Sugartop Furniture

  

  I’m not sure exactly how to classify much of the work of Meredith, NH based Sugartop Furniture; a lot of owner/proprietor Jeff McAllister’s work is a sort of modern Shaker, but there are very strong elements of Asian-influenced Mission and Craftsman design present as well. Some of his work – a cherry and curly maple coffee table, a curly maple computer desk, a cherry and maple blanket chest – are recognizeably Shaker, with the clean and spare and very modern looking lines of that style. However, items such as these inlaid media shelves are much more fanciful and expressive.

  And when visiting Jeff’s site, make sure and read his illustrated article showing the entire tree-to-finished-furniture process.

• craftsmandoors.com

  There are a number of really fine artists and craftspeople making doors in traditional Craftsman styles right now (we’ve got a few photos up in the galleries of Brian Lee‘s excellent and very creative work at Mendocino Doors), but what stood out about Craftsmandoors.com was more their business model and application than anyhing else – the doors are nice, the glass good-looking if limited, but they have this "door quote wizard" on their site that allows you to go through a 10-12 step process of specifying everything from finish to sidelights and transom, size, drip cap, hardware and of course general design. Owners Todd and Lori Preimsberg sell only over the Internet and keep their stock in Renton, Washington.

• Reclaimed Wood

  A number of firms sell wood flooring reclaimed from a huge variety of sources – rosewood railroad ties from Thailand, southern yellow pine from catalog warehouses, Great Salt Lake railroad trestle pilings, Douglas Fir ("distressed picklewood") from pickle vats, maple from factory floors, remilled oak, chestnut, pine and other woods salvaged from old homes and barns – the list goes on and on. In addition to flooring, some companies market millwork and beams made from reclaimed wood. It’s so nice to know the provenance of your floors – to walk around on that kind of history and know that there’s a story behind it. Given the increasingly competetive pricing and availability of this type of wood, the shipping costs that used to rule it out for many projects are less and less an issue.

• Alice Roth-Suszynski, cabinetmaker

  

  "Aunt Alice" has been working as a cabinetmaker for over 25 years, and has spent the last 10 years focusing on furniture design and manufacture. Her focus has been specifically on the Prairie aesthetic, but her interpretation of those straight, wide lines is certainly original and modern; she’s integrated Asian design elements and techniques into her work as well, and the end result is recognizeably orthodox Prairie and, at the same time, very contemporary. She lives and works in San Diego county, and sells her furniture through her web site and is available for hire for other projects, such as the built-ins she has concentrated on for much of her career.

• Jim Becker, cabinetmaker

  Jim Becker is just one of the many gifted cabinetmakers in the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers. Since first being introduced to the trade at a boatyard in Friendship, Maine in 1979, Becker has gone on to develop his craft by designing and building furniture that combines elements of traditional Shaker cabinetry with those of Mission and Craftsman styles. His Ming Shaker line integrates the simple plainness of Shaker design with the detail and angularity of contemporary modern woodwork. My favorite piece, though, is his Mission armoire, which can look monumental from one angle and subtly austere from another.

• Gallenberg Lamps

  Maureen Doyle and Tom Gallenberg forwarded me a few images of Tom’s new lamps; I’ve put them up in the woodwork photo album. Do take a look at Tom’s site – his work is quite extraordinary, not just the lamps but all of his furniture. The almost minimalist sideboard and his Greene & Greene-styled sofa table with cloud lift and ebony plug elements (further down the same page) are some of my favorite pieces.

• 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
• 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.