For some time, I’ve wanted to start a thread on mentors.
I started woodworking before Fine Woodworking and was teaching myself so I depended on just published sources of information. Joyce’s Encyclopedia of Furniture Making was a great source and an early Audel’s Carpenter’s and Builder’s Guide was pretty helpful. After a few years, FWW came along and was a great resource. There were a few woodworkers around but they all seemed to be into either rectilinear assemblies of flat boards or overly heavy laminated forms a la early Wendel Castle–I wasn’t interested in either.
My best source though was a sideboard my wife bought on one of our first dates. American Victorian furniture is usually of notoriously poor quality but this Victorian side board is British and entirely hand made. While publications were sometimes helpful my real mentor was a long-dead cabinet maker. I had one piece of his and it contained nearly every woodworking technique. There’s no scarf joint, no veneer and no carving in the round but everything else was there. I’ve since come to think this side board may well be a master piece in the guild sense of the term–where a journeyman is judged a master by the guild based on one presentation piece.
I have no idea who my real mentor might have been. There’s no signature on the piece. I do appreciate the knowledge, inspiration and traditions he left behind for me to find as I need. I’ve lived with and studied this sideboard for more than 30 years. I’m still learning from it and suspect it has a lot more to teach.
Replies
Yes, I know what you feel there.
My parents had a number of antique pieces, some of which impressed me from an early age, especially after a knowledgeable friend explained how they would have been made, timbers used, finishes etc.
Unfortunately I do not have the piece which impressed me permanently- a linen cabinet on chest of drawers, mahogany veneered on oak, flame matched serpentine doors, turned columns with brass footings, flawless.
I have with me a simple well made ladies work table, though, pictured.It is veneered in Rosewood, the "veneer" on the top being 3mm thick. The box originally was covered with raffia, but generations of cats stripped most of it, so my Mother used that red material over it. Drawer bottom in Cidrella Toona (cigar box wood), neat drawer lock in brass and iron with brass escutcheon.All precise and well fitting work.
Thanks for that post, Larry. I like the idea that we can connect to long gone skilled craftsmen through their furniture. In Houston, we have a couple of great resources for furniture: Bayou Bend and Reinzi -- both wonderful and extensive collections of American and European 18th century furniture. It is wonderful to see pieces like that in the flesh. It drives me nuts, though, that in a museum setting (at least these particular museum settings) all the really interesting tidbits of joinery and technique are not available for inspection. They don't let you pull out draws to see how they were made, or inspect the inside of a carcass to see drawer runners. All that could-be-mentoring just out of reach . . .
Larry
Nice thread. For me, I'd have to say that I have two mentor's. My first is definately my mother's father. He died when I was two years old, but my mom kept several pieces that he made, and when I was growing up, two of them were chests of drawers in my bedroom. They are made of mahogany, with a cock beading around the drawers, a little bit of carving, and he veneered all the drawer fronts with flame mahogany veneer, around 1/8" thick, all in sequence off the timber, to a solid secondary wood, which I believe is maple. I'm now 43, and both pieces are still in my posession, and are both still used by me.
My mom believes he built these pieces back in the 1920's, as he didn't sign or date them.
I grew up always astonished at the craftsmanship that he posessed to build such beautiful furniture, and aspired to teach myself to do the same. I would give anything to have him spend just one day in my shop with me now.
My other mentor was my wife's father. He was one helluva carpenter, and a fantastic businessman. He used his talents in building homes, not furniture, but he taught me the valuable lessons of running a successful business.
Jeff
Good stuff Larry
You beg the question I ask myself from time to time: should you leave a ledger of when, how,and where you build your piece? For many years I did not. Now I put something in every piece. I put as many details as I can write on the bottom of a drawer or the back of a cabinet. It's funny really, people enjoy it when they find a cabinet with the the construction details or the headlines describing the "music festival in White Lake NY" on the back of a shaker cabinet. Yep it was Woodstock.
dan
Hi Larry
Great idea for a thread. I hope I have something to offer.
I was uncertain at first how to conceptualize this for my mentor is neither a complex piece of furniture nor even a woodworker.
I spent many of my early years camping in forests with my father. Deep, among the trees, with just nature around and civilization far away. Dad (now a fit 93) was an architect with a deep admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright and a love of wood and flowing lines. The house he designed for us was years ahead of it time in its use of space and proportion. He incorporated timbers from around the world, such as the Redwood dividing wall to the dining room, and the Ash floors. There were so many different timbers – Mahogany, Cedar, African Blackwood … the dining table was Pear (I appropriated the top when he decided to build a larger one. That became my wife’s dressing table). He taught me about grain and I loved to look at it as if it were the art that hung on the walls that my mother collected. He taught me about joinery - which is very interesting since he never picked up a tool in his life (except an axe to fell a tree for the fire). Dad did design a lot of furniture, though. His work had a strong feel of the Scandanavian – strong, clean simple lines, with a relative lack of adornment, an emphasis on flow to displaying the timber.
I have a set of armchairs he designed. These were commissioned by a Swedish company in about 1930. Dad is fond of saying that they were built in Czechoslovakia and the last goods out of the country as WW II brought a halt to life.
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Regards from Perth
Derek
I'd like to dissect my mentors, one by one, to see precisely how they were made.
Adam
I'd like to dissect my mentors, one by one, to see precisely how they were made. -- Adam daVinci
Peel thyself, physician! :)
My mentors: Charles Hayward, Roy Underhill and Bob Smalser... not so much for technique as for the approach and mindset.---------------
/dev
Mine was a local teacher, Joe Trippi, who "suffered his apprenticeship" in England then came to the colonies and eventually opened (and closed) Willow Tree Academy.
Still see him on occasion, he gave me a great grounding in hand tool use and construction methods and why you should do something the way its done.
Mike
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