My Favorite'

Often when I'm teaching a class I am asked "what is my favorite thing I love to build"? I love making tables. Tables can be traditional, sculptural, whatever. They don't have to fit exact measuremants like a kitchen cabinet does. I find them very freeing as a designer and maker.

My favorite piece of furniture I have ever made has to be my two old Adirondack chairs. I was given a bunch of old pine floor boards that came out of an 1800's house on Cap Cod. The boards were thin and were various thicknesses and widths, varnished on one side and were stained from where the square nails once were. The boards were beautiful. I had them sitting around for a long time and finally made myself a couple of Adirondack chairs. I love the chairs, not so much for the look of them, though they do look beautiful, varnish flaking and stained, but more for what they represent. They are meant to relax in. Forget your troubles for a moment and just sit and take it easy. I also think about the gentleman who gave me the boards. His name escapes me but he was moving his family from Cap Cod to Austin Texas. I have the chairs sitting at the side of the house, facing west, so Liesl and I can watch the sun set.

Getting ready for Traillworks

Getting ready for the "Tour of Art" exhibition at the Traillworks Gallery.

Here are some of the bread boxes I have collected over the years, washed and ready to be assembled. I buy most of them at garage sales, thrift stores and on ebay. I also collect vintage ottomans from the same time period. I remove the legs and hardware and use them as the legs for the bread box tables.

The legs from the ottomans are a good height. The tables aren't to high. I like to use materials from the same time period, I could turn them myself but then I would have to buy the hardware separately. It is actually cheaper to buy the ottoman with the legs and the hardware. I now have a collection of vintage vinyl ottomans that I'll make something with. Some of the legs will stay as they are and some will get painted, depending on which bread box I use.

Tour of Art Exhibition at Trailworks Gallery

This September I have the privelage of being the guest Artist for the month at the Traillworks Gallery in Newton New Jersey. Artist and gallery owner Jennie Schaeffer has kindly invited me to show my line of work " Bread Side Tables". I will be showing my work along side Jennies' wonderful paintings. I feel our work will compliment eachother nicely. This exhibition will co-incide with Newtons Spring Street " Tour of Art", Second Saturday on Spring Street.

To learn more about the Traillworks Gallery and to learn more about Jennies' work visit her website and blog at www.traillworks.com and www.traillworks.blogspot.com.

Keep watch- I'll be assembling ten Bread Side Tables for the exhibition.

Thanks Jennie'

Alice, Angie and the chickens.

Alice, The wood studio cat finds a comfortable bed in the shavings from Beth Irelands class.

Angie, our dog at home shares a bowl of water with our chickens. We bought the chicks in April and they are now ready to lay eggs.

Introduction To Woodturning

On July 24th my friend Beth Ireland came to Peters Valley to teach a five day woodturning workshop titled " Introduction to Woodturning". Beth is an incredible woodturner and furniture maker. Check out beths work and her instructional DVD's at her website. Beth had five students and over the course of five days they turned spindles, made tools such as an awl and a small spindle gouge and turned lidded boxes and bowls.

Introduction to Cabinetmaking

On July 10th I started teaching a five day workshop titled " Introduction to Cabinetmaking"

I had two students for the five days which was great because we were able to spend more time on things like sharpening and making hand cut dovetails.

My studio assistant for the first part of the summer was Peter Hedstrom. Peter did a great job'

Bill and Ron worked hard and both completed the project , which was a wall hung tool box.