Waitsville, VT

The next town over from Yestermorrow is Waitsville, VT.  Waitsville is a very picturesque town with many cafes' and galleries.  This is bridge street.  This is a beautiful wooden covered bridge.  These are some views

 from the bridge.



Around Yestermorrow

These views are from the main building, the parking lot and from my dorm room.  The area is fantastic.  There are many incredible buildings on the campus that have been design build projects. There are solar panels everywhere.  The school is off of the grid and totally self-sufficient.



Vermont and Yestermorrow

On Sunday October 31st I headed up to Warren Vermont to teach a five day workshop in cabinet-making at the Yestermorrow Design Build School.  The trip up was amazing.  Most of the leaves were off of the trees but the scenery was still great

Yestermorrow

At the end of the month I'll be teaching a five day class called " Cabinets and Built-ins" at the Yestermorrow Design School in Warren, VT.  The objective of the class is that myself and the students will build a commission piece for a client while learning along the way.  These two quick drawings are the final design of the kitchen Island we'll be building.  Please follow our progress as I'll be posting regularly.



Evolution

I'm teaching a workshop called " Cabinets and Built Ins" at the Yestermorrow Design School in Warren, VT at the end of October.  The premise of the course is that I'm partnered with a client who has commissioned me ( the school) to build a piece for them.  I design the project and then in 5 days myself and the students build the piece for the client.  Her are some quick thumbnail sketches I sent to the client.  We are designing and building a kitchen island.  The client has specific details we are incorporating into the design.  These sketches are quick and are meant to start a dialogue.  The client will then say yes to some parts and no to others. Eventually we'll hone in on a design.

Windows Worcester

Arts Worcester has a program called " Worcester Windows" where they display art work in the windows of local businesses.  I was asked to display a chair I made.  There are two other artist involved.  I'm not sure if Lindsey or Bayda created this beautiful large egg made out of strips of wood.  You can walk into and sit inside the egg.  The form is reminiscent of some of Martin Puryears' work.  If you're in downtown Worcester please stop by Arts Worcester and see the work.  The display windows are across the street

from the gallery.

 

Fire and Ice

Liesl and I both currently have work on display at the Aurora gallery as part of Arts Worcester annual members exhibition. The name of the exhibition is " Fire and Ice"

I am showing my tea lights and Liesl is showing a piece title " Sprout 3". The exhibition runs from now until

Nov. 19th

For more information on the exhibition please visit www.artsworcester.org



Ah' So Much Potential

This might not look like much right now but I've been lugging these red maple sticks around with me for a while.  Last year Wayne Hall taught a rustic furniture making class at Peters Valley. He inspired me so much that I've been keeping all of the leftovers from that class, just waiting for an opportunity to make a rustic style chair.  Rustic furniture gets the short end of the stick, no pun intended, o-kay- it was, I was really impressed with the detail to design and the sensitivity to material use Wayne has and taught his students.  The end results were beautiful.

I am building a rustic chair for the television show " The Garage"  A perfect opportunity.  I'll be using red maple for the chair and shaker style woven seat tape for the seat of the chair.  I'll post the progress.

Studio Update

I've been working on a few things that I've already posted. Things such as tea lights, the diner kitchen cart and Fiona's guitar stand. I was working yesterday with the doors open. It was a beautiful day out, the light was pouring in, I had my jazz music playing on the stereo. I felt good working in this environment. I haven't shown the studio lately. So here's my environment.

Diner Continued

Today I continued working on the kitchen cart.  I completed the bead board and love how it looks.  The cart will have a vinyl  teal blue seat cushion on it to give it that vintage diner feel. There will be a drawer at the bottom of the cart.  Liesl and I are putting together an exhibition for the spring.  This piece will be part of

that exhibition.

 



Playground

On Sunday Liesl and I took our son Quinn to the playground at the local elementary school. Amongst all of the slides and swings were these fantastic trees.  The juniper tress are awesome and the burls on the beech tree are fantastic.

Diner - For Two

A couple of years ago my friend and colleague from Peters Valley Dick Sargent gave my an old commercial kitchen cart.  The cart was sitting outside at the back of the Blacksmith Shop.  Dick thought I could make something out of it.  The stainless steel cart has a pitch to it.  It was used to collect dishes and trays.  The pitch is so that the dishes don't fall out when the cart is being wheeled around.

I sat in the cart and it was surprisingly comfortable.  The slope was perfect.  I decide I turn the cart into a diner booth.  The back and sides will be covered with tongue and groove pine boards.  The seat will be a teal blue vinyl upholstered seat.  The bottom will have a drawer  in it.    

Vessels

Here are are some samples of Harveys' work.  These vessels are beautiful.  Harvey incorporates the router with his lathe to create these extraordinary pieces.

Harvey Fein

This past weekend Harvey Fein came to town to do a woodturning demonstration for The Blackstone Valley School of Crafts. www.theblackstonevalleyschoolofcrafts.blogspot.com Harveys work is pretty amazing and he has developed many jigs and devices to incorporate the router with traditional turning techniques.

Canopy

This past weekend my friend Harvey Fein came to town to do a demonstration for the Blackstone Valley School of Crafts.  Across the street from the Bed and Breakfast where Harvey was staying was this beautiful old Beech tree.  The tree sat between two houses. Both neighbours have let the tree grow to its potential.  The old tree had a beautiful, full canopy.

The Blackstone Valley School of Crafts

Please allow us to introduce ourselves.  Steve Butler, Richard Chiros and jeff Hollis are three professional woodworkers, artist and educators.  We believe that preserving craft is preserving something that is inherent to us all.  We all love to make things.  We love what craft has done for our lives and we want to share our passion with you.  We want too make sure that craft remains part of our community.  So we invite you to the beginning of our next creation, "The Blackstone Valley School of Crafts." The Blackstone Valley School of Crafts is in its very early stage but we feel it's very important to be part of the community.  We will put the emphasis in woodworking and wood turning  workshops, offering general interest evening night and day classes and weekend workshop intensives, as well as offering classes in other mediums such as stained glass, jewelry making and ceramics and others.  We are located in an historic theatre in South Grafton, Massachusetts off of Rte 122, easily accessible from Providence, RI, Worcester, MA and Boston, MA.  Please come and see what we have to offer, visit us at www.theblackstonevalleyschoolofcrafts.blogspot.com .