After a long absence, Sept 7th open event @ NHIA

I know, it has been a good year since I posted, and I have been meaning to get back, but life has intervened. Indeed, the unfolding dramas in Washington DC have taken up much more of my time and attention than I would have liked, but that aside, I want to invite all of my…

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Dutch Design Week – Student Work

The Dutch Design Academy graduated 171 students this year, and one of the perks is that they get to exhibit their senior project at Design Week.  With 250,000 attendees (DDW’s figures), this is a powerful draw to keep students in the area through the end of October.  I talked with one student who had graduated…

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At the end of the project…

There is always an end of the project, where the piece is finished, or as finished as it is ever going to be.  It reminds me of the polisher in the Steinway piano factory.  When the tour group came through, one person asked him – “How do you know when it is finished?”  to which…

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The Makers Guild at the IDB

Over the past few months, we have moved into our new space in the Makers Guild section of the Innovation and Design Building here in South Boston. While we moved in a couple of months ago, it is only just becoming comfortable and easy to work in.  Every shop takes on an aura of “home”…

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Thomas Jefferson’s chairs

This chair was probably made at Monticello – by Thomas Jefferson’s joiner and slave, John Hemings.  Whether TJ himself ever sat on it is up for discussion. In the collection of Colonial Williamsburg, it is an example of a chair with less finesse than those made in large urban centers, but with a bit more…

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Design by Hand and Eye

I usually don’t get involved with little snippets of things, but every once in a while something comes across the bench that shows significant creativity and an understanding of a more complex topic. This happens to be one. A great stop-motion short about designing a footstool using Leonardo’s concepts embodied in Vitruvian Man, which he…

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The Ultimate in Bog Oak trees

Earlier in the week we heard about the woman who discovered a 10,000 year old forest – underwater – about 300 yards off the north Norfolk coast of England.  She was out for a morning dive and came across the trees lying in 20 feet of water, probably uncovered in a big storm the year…

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The Creative Process…

It has been almost 15 years since I started making furniture seriously, and over that time I have tried to hew to one particular mantra –  to make only beautiful, useful furniture. And sure enough, over the course of time I have made hundreds of pieces, and each time I vow to make the next…

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