As I’ve been putting together preparations for my presentations this weekend at the Northeastern Woodworker’s Association Annual Showcase, I’m rehearsing the building blocks of furniture conservation theory and practice. I’ve found that teaching a basic introduction to a topic is the real proving ground to see if you have a good grasp on it. This weekend, I have a one hour time slot to present the overarching framework of a profession that presumably none of the listeners are involved in. With this in mind, I always make it a point to try to teach in a way that not only intrigues the listeners but also equips them to learn more on their own. Questions of the “right” thing to do,...
This post is the beginning of a new chapter in my blogging. For years, I’ve blogged at The Workbench Diary sharing the ins and outs of my little conservation practice on the coast of Maine. I’ve regularly posted about furniture related research, preservation, and recreation with the occasional glimpse into happenings on my homestead including goats, chickens, gardens, etc. Even as Mortise & Tenon Magazine has been growing and blossoming far beyond what I ever envisioned, I’ve been maintaining (sort of) The Workbench Diary alongside. What has been happening lately is that because so much of my time has been spent on M&T it has naturally started to become the M&T blog. As I’ve been sharing these M&T-related blog...
Late last week I finally got a two day break from this magazine craziness. Early Thursday morning my studio assistant Mike and I got on the road to head down to the Yale Furniture Study in New Haven, CT. Even though this was technically a “business” trip it was an immense “pleasure” to be away from my computer screen and M&T mailing responsibilities. This magazine has been a real stretch on my ability to keep it together while being pulled a million different directions by urgent matters. I survived a few months like that but I was beginning to reach a breaking point.This Yale trip was a totally different experience. Road tripping 6.5 hours down the coast with my good...
Every year I have a number of lectures, presentations, and demonstrations booked. Here are the events for 2016. April 2nd – 3rd Northeastern Woodworkers Association Annual Showcase in Saratoga Springs, New YorkI will be presenting two workshops on both Saturday and Sunday. Between sessions, I will be at my booth with M&T merchandise talking about building furniture with hand tools and conserving our furniture heritage. Below are the workshops I will be presenting:1. “Conservation in Practice: Restoring Antique Furniture" – This workshop is a discussion of conservation theory, the relationship to “restoration”, determining “what to do” for a given project, and is a demonstration of executing some of the most common repairs without jeopardizing historic integrity. This is an introductory...
The plan has been since last fall that I was going to dedicate the month of January to working on the magazine exclusively. I knew there was going to be a lot of editing and design work that I couldn’t get done in my “spare” time alone. Also, the public excitement about M&T really forced me to step up my game and make this thing as polished as I reasonably could achieve with the time and resources I had at hand. Giving M&T this concentrated January time worked out well with the exception of one thing: it’s still not over. As we were packing magazines and dropping off van load after van load at the Post Office last month, things...
