One of the things I love about building vernacular furniture is that when everything is assembled and joinery planed flush, the job is only half done – a clear expanse of white pine has always been seen as an inviting canvas for artistic whimsy. Yesterday, my two older boys and I made a small hanging knife box for my wife, Julia. Besides the angled sides and scallop details, this build is nothing more than a few pieces of white pine nailed together. (This design was inspired by object #125 in Russell Kettle’s The Pine Furniture of Early New England, by the way.) This morning, after consulting with my wife about her decorative preferences, my oldest and I tackled the paint. We began...
During a quick inventory of M&T back issues in our storage unit, I recently discovered that we’re about to hit a significant milestone in the life of this magazine – one that had me reflecting a bit about “the old days.” Issue One is where it all began. In February 2016, Joshua, his wife and kids, a few of their friends, and I were shipping the inaugural issue of M&T out of their living room. We’d set up a big plank on sawhorses in the center of the room, and the dining room table added a few precious square feet of workspace. The kitchen counter was fully occupied, too. For several days, a rotating crew of volunteers wrapped the magazine...
We are excited to announce Issue Six is now available for pre-order in our store! (There is free domestic shipping on all pre-orders and subscriptions.)
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If you want to pre-order only this issue, you can do so here.
This pre-order window will close after Tuesday, March 26th. After that date, the shipping charge will be applied and there will be no brown paper and wax-sealed wrapping.
Plans are afoot to build a woodworker’s shop at Old Sturbridge Village. A commitment to craft has long been central to the museum’s mission to recreate a New England community of the early 1800s. Today visitors can see a potter, printer, tinsmith, blacksmith, shoemaker, and cooper in action, and during the early years of the Village, which opened in 1946, cabinet- and chairmakers demonstrated there as well. However, in the mid-1980s, financial pressures and retirements of key craftsmen brought an end to the interpretation of the furniture trades. Now thirty years later, new research on the prominence of cabinetmaking in the Sturbridge area has revived interest in representing the craft to the public.
We are announcing one Issue Six article each weekday until pre-orders open on February 1st. If you don’t already have a subscription and just wanted to order a copy of Issue Six by itself, you may do so on February 1st. If you signed up for an auto-renewing yearly subscription, your card will be automatically charged exactly 365 days from your original purchase date. Any questions about your subscription status can be directed to info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. For our Issue Six book recommendation, we contacted Arsenios Hill, a carver and toolmaker living in the desert of the American Southwest. He recently found himself captivated by Soetsu Yanagi’s rich and reflective work, The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty. Yanagi was the founder of Japan’s...
Double-iron planes. Few tools in the woodworker’s repertoire have inspired as many debates among pundits, armchair craftsmen, and makers. Some argue that the best way of dealing with difficult and figured grain is to use a single iron, steep bed angle, and tight mouth. Others disagree, singing the praises of this “new” 18th-century plane technology.
What we call “green woodworking” today carried no such particular distinction, historically – the work of vernacular woodcraft naturally began with the tree in the forest. Join author Michael Updegraff as he looks at the close connection that makers of the past had with the raw materials they worked, and the practical benefits that can be gained today by approaching wood not just as a dimensioned-and-dried material to be purchased at a lumberyard or home center, but as the living thing that it is.
This new episode of our podcast is focused on Joshua’s new book about the furniture making of Jonathan Fisher, a Maine furniture maker working during first quarter of the 19th century. Joshua spent five years writing a book looking closely at the surviving furniture, tools, and journal entries of this rural maker to understand what it was like to work in the 18th and early-19th centuries. Having just come from the Colonial Williamsburg conference to share this research, he and Mike discuss the writing of this book and several of the unique take-home lessons for those of us in the 21st century.
Items Mentioned in this Episode:
Colonial Williamsburg
The Book: “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768–1847)”
We are announcing one Issue Six article each weekday until pre-orders open on February 1st. If you don’t already have a subscription and just wanted to order a copy of Issue Six by itself, you may do so on February 1st. If you signed up for an auto-renewing yearly subscription, your card will be automatically charged exactly 365 days from your original purchase date. Any questions about your subscription status can be directed to info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. The beauty and artistry of period Pennsylvania Dutch painted furniture is well known. Full of whimsy and symbolism while maintaining rigid symmetry and proper proportions, this style characterizes German-American furniture decoration in the 17th and 18th centuries. Join author Jim McConnell as he explores the German roots of...
We are announcing one Issue Six article each weekday until pre-orders open on February 1st. If you don’t already have a subscription and just wanted to order a copy of Issue Six by itself, you may do so on February 1st. If you signed up for an auto-renewing yearly subscription, your card will be automatically charged exactly 365 days from your original purchase date. Any questions about your subscription status can be directed to info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. Sometimes a chair is more than a chair. Sometimes, it makes a statement about time and place that transcends the substance of humbly painted wood. Author Nathaniel Brewster takes a look at such a chair - an 18th-century New England Windsor that he affectionately dubs “Henry.” As he...
