Advertisements
Tag Archives: furniture
Women of Woodworking – Vanessa Johnston, South Queensferry, Edinburgh, Scotland
15 Jun
Vanessa Johnston’s journey as a fine woodworker has only just begun, and she is starting with quite a bang. She is a recent graduate of the Chippendale International School of Furniture in Edinburgh and was awarded the prestigious honor of being named the Chippendale Society’s Student of the Year.
Vanessa began woodworking at 20 when she assisted with the construction of an outdoor kitchen and a private tent site. Over time, her carpentry interests developed into a passion for fine woodworking.
“Building tables for wedding altars and my own dining areas plunged me into wanting to be able to do it well and build find things,” she explains.
Vanessa’s favorite tool is her ventilator mask, as it goes through every step of every project with her. She is inspired by a variety of art, from little sculptures her fiance’s father carved out of driftwood, to works by Rothko and Jacques Louis David.
“Gloria Petarre has a black and white oil painting called Leaves that stirs my soul… I think out of everything right now though it’s Alexander Calder’s Blue Feather. The movement in his sculptures makes me feel like I can fly,” she shares.
In her recent works, Vanessa has completed an armchair of her own design, which she describes as “loosely based on both the Sam Maloof low back chair and the Wegner Wishbone chair.” It features Scottish elm and olive ash hardwoods. She is also turning live edge bowls and platters from a green cherry tree.
To view more of Vanessa’s work or get in touch:
Women of Woodworking – Kate Duncan, Vancouver, BC, Canada
31 May
Kate Duncan is pretty straight forward. It shows through the clear and clean lines in her work, and even in sharing her story, she sticks to the elements of what works and what doesn’t.
She describes her woodworking background in plain terms. She started woodworking in her 7th grade shop class, and now works out of her studio in Vancouver, BC.
Kate’s modern collections are constructed using traditional joinery. Her designs feature luxurious accents such as elegant hardware selections or fluid pairings with mellow leather upholstery. Each collection is gracefully named in a playful juxtaposition to it’s defined forms.
When it comes to tools, Kate likes “Chisels. Sharp ones.”
She draws artistic inspiration from The High Line in New York City.
Kate’s current projects include protyping a new dining room table design. “It’s very fashion forward… I’m experimenting with a few new techniques.”
To view more of Kate’s work or get in touch:
Women of Woodworking – Meredith Hart, Durham, North Carolina
26 Apr
When asked, Meredith Hart will tell you she meandered into woodworking. Her background is in art and design, and after college she moved to Vermont to take classes at Yestermorrow Design/Build School. She just so happened to really love the ladder back chair and box making classes. Then, she applied to the North Bennet Street School in Boston, which is where she claims to have really made her start.
Taking a look at Hart’s work, albeit from a distance, it’s hard to believe she aimlessly drifted into something that she has such a natural aptitude for. Her work pairs the restraint of classical styles with modern shapes. Pieces appear to be practical, almost sensible, but a dashing undertone shines through in the details. A seemingly simple table may feature proud, hidden carvings under the top’s edges or crisp, faceted stretchers. 
Like a reflection of her own journey into the craft, there is a bit of enchantment in her work that can only be seen if you look closely enough.
Hart is currently working on a commissioned design for a leather top desk that will include brass lion’s feet. A touch of other elements such as metal or glass is another signature in Hart’s balanced compositions.
“I don’t think I’ll ever have a custom project that doesn’t require me to learn something new. That’s what keeps it interesting,” she says.
Her favorite piece of art is Wharton Esherick’s woodcut “Swing.” “With just a few simple cuts the image depicts the pull of gravity and rush of wind in a way that you can almost feel it,” she describes.
Her favorite tool is her Stanley 71 1/2 router plane she acquired while in school in New Hampshire. She now resides in Durham, North Carolina, where she enjoys living between the coast and the mountains.
To view more of Meredith’s work or get in touch:
MeredithHartFurniture.com
Meredith@MeredithHartFurniture.com
@MeredithHartFurniture
Women of Woodworking – Keira James, Staveley, England
16 Mar
Keira James’ introduction to woodworking shows that it’s never too late to follow your dream. James took two woodworking classes in high school that served as her original foray into the world of woodworking. James took the class twice “….because I failed the first time (I didn’t finish my coffee table.)” While James didn’t take to the craft initially “It’s not something I’m naturally gifted at,” she explains, the passion to make items of quality stayed with her. “I actually put it on my bucket list. The interest has always been there even though I’m not sure where it originally came from.”
Despite some nasty chisel cuts and frustrations with plane blades in high school, it wasn’t until James turned 25 that she realized it was time to follow her dreams. “I was 25 and realized I wasn’t passionate about anything I was doing in life.” After trying a few hobbies James moved to the UK for two years but the desire to make fine furniture never left her. “With all of these positive changes I kept going back to wanting to make furniture and often would spend hours researching different courses and options to learn the skills.”
After some soul searching and discussions with family, James put her traveling plans on the back burner to save money to take a course. Even with the support of her family James said she was still nervous about making the leap, “I had quite a bit of anxiety leading up to the course which is really unlike me. I was scared I had made a terrible mistake. What if I didn’t like it? What if it is a big waste of money? What if I’m not good enough? What if I’ve wasted all of this time living a quiet life and saving hard and it’s all for nothing?”
Most of those questions were answered once James started her course and the anxiety dissipated. Still, she put immense pressure on herself at first. “Another guy started on the same days as me and he was much faster, I was always playing catch up, spending extra time at the workshop so I wouldn’t fall behind. I was sore all of the time, my hands, wrists, arms and shoulders. I even dreamt I had broken my hands.”
Despite the pain and stress James pressed on, “Eventually my body got stronger, the extra time I spent started to pay off. I realized I had nothing to prove to anyone and stopped putting so much pressure on myself.” Now James spends six days a week in the shop out of love for what she does, not out of fear or frustration.
James doesn’t think her experiences as a female have differed much from her male counterparts, even though she was the first female and the first foreigner at her school. As far as her gender influencing her work, while James mentioned that in a recent critique one of her cabinets were described as more “feminine” than the other’s projects, “I’ve never really considered work in terms of feminine or masculine.”
James’ most recent project, a desk.
James enjoys each new piece more than her last. Her most recent project is a desk that gave her the opportunity not only to design and build her own piece from start to finish, but it has also shown her a new niche to enjoy of hand shaping wood. “It is one of my favorite things to do….I spent about a week on the legs and I loved every minute of it.” The desk also features an impressive 76 dovetails.
James just finished her course at Waters & Acland in Staveley, England, and will be enjoying a few months of work and some fun in the UK before she heads home to Australia. She already has a few requests for pieces so she doesn’t think it will be long before she sets up shop once she returns. James is also qualified as a Speech Pathologist and works in rehabilitation of stroke victims while they are in the hospital.
For women in woodworking, James shared that she would like to see “…a community of female woodworkers to share our successes and teach each other, and to raise our profile. It would be nice if there were young girls who were thinking about woodworking as a career to look to the internet and find a group of talented female makers to show that even if it is male dominated that females can be excellent makers as well.”
While James does not have a website yet, you can follow her journey from recent graduate to professional woodworker on her Instagram account, @meraki_furniture.
Women of Woodworking – Sarah Marriage, Hoboken, NJ
28 Jan
Sarah Marriage didn’t always know she was meant to be a woodworker. Like most of us the craft sort of found her. In Sarah’s case it was after attending Princeton for architecture as an undergrad. Also like most of us, she yearned to actually make something. Marriage quotes architectural theorist Robin Evans as one of her main inspirations towards becoming an artist, “Architects don’t make buildings; they make drawings of buildings.”
Marriage wanted to design and make something herself using the human scale that inspired her so. She wanted to know that her materials were ethically harvested or produced and that “the other labor with whom I collaborated was treated as well as I treat myself.”
Furniture became her new focus. She moved back to Alaska, got a day job and an apartment and set up her shop in her parent’s heated garage. She didn’t know how to build furniture, but she was going to learn.
She started off by purchasing “throw-away furniture from Anchorage thrift stores” that she would take apart and and reassemble according to her own design. Hours were spent in bookstores reading anything she could get her hands on to strengthen her knowledge. One day she picked up a book by James Krenov, and his words secured her desire to continue on with furniture making.
Marriage returned to the northeast where she resided in New York City as she worked for Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineers. She then spent a year with her brother and his wife in Baltimore as they rehabilitated their 19th century town home. She also applied to the College of the Redwoods during this time, nearly a decade after first discovering her passion for furniture making. She spent two years there in California and then headed back east where she now shares a shop in Hoboken, NJ with other talented makers, including Thomas Hucker and cuddly Frank the shop cat.
Marriage pointed out that “in any zone, it seems people have different expectations of men and women,” but also mentioned the different paths that are often taken between the sexes within the craft. “A lot of female woodworkers, including myself, came into our field through art and design education. The traditional pathway to furniture maker, beginning as unskilled labor and working one’s way up through the field to master woodworker: this is typically (not always but typically) a path unavailable to women,” noting that the number of women in the field who started in the traditional shop route are much lower than women who went the academic route.
“Gender isn’t an issue,” says Marriage when she is in the shop or at a school. In other realms of the industry, perhaps a lumber yard, treatment can be much different. “Two weeks ago I went to a new lumber place with another female furniture maker. The first person who interacted with us, as we walked into the yard said “Woah woah where are you goin’?,” thinking we were lost.”
She also isn’t afraid to point out that she does accept the extra help when needed, “I have a bad back, and will take as much help as I can when it comes to lifting large planks, but beyond that the help is usually unnecessary, and wouldn’t be offered to a man, and at the end of the day I just want to be treated like the competent woodworker who I am.”
Despite a few negatives encounters over the years Marriage feels like her experiences have been beneficial and mostly for the better. “Over all, I think that I have been lucky. I’ve had predominantly positive experiences. I’ve been put in a handful of rather uncomfortable situations, but I’ve never had anyone actively work against me because of my gender, and often I find that there are strong advocates out there in the world for women woodworkers. We’re also pretty good at sticking together.”
While Marriage doesn’t feel like she currently explores gender within her own art, she is interested in expanding ideas of how we determine the gender roles we try to assign within the styles of our work. “I find it fascinating when I am showing my work in a public setting, like an exhibition opening, that people will discuss the furniture itself in gender terms. ‘That’s beautiful, but that wouldn’t work for me… it’s a lady’s desk, right?’ These kinds of comments happen a lot. People seem to seek out gender in objects (‘is this a his-and-hers set?’), and I encourage broadening those expectations (‘it could be his-and-hers, or hers-and-hers, or his-and-his, or just completely unpaired!’).”
For the future of women in woodworking Marriage thinks growth, reflection, and hard work are the key. “I would like to see more female woodworkers. To me, that’s the crux” she says. “If there were more female woodworkers the field would be more welcoming to female woodworkers. Of course that’s a chicken-egg situation, so I think the next steps are about both encouraging girls to consider pursuing our field and also looking at our own biases, our own expectations of what people are capable of or might be interested in and working to change those expectations at the same time.”
Marriage has an array of events and projects coming up. She’ll be featured at the prestigious American Craft Council Baltimore Show February 20 – 22nd as part of their HipPop program that features emerging artists. She’ll also be serving as the technical assistant to Jennifer Anderson during the “Environment as Muse” furniture course at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts this summer.
Marriage is also a writer within the craft. She is the co-editor and co-founder, along with Luke Cissell and Cara Sheffler, of Works & Days Quarterly, “an online quarterly of arts, letters, music, and no small amount of craft.” While still in school she published her essay A Call to Practice about learning to be a woodworker.
You can find Sarah Marriage on Instagram at @sarah_marriage or on Facebook too. You can also visit her website at sarahmarriage.com
View the landing page and other interviews for the Women of Woodworking series here.
Women of Woodworking – Leslie Webb, Georgetown, TX
8 Jan
Leslie Webb – Furniture Designer and Maker
Leslie Webb is no stranger to the heat. Living outside of Austin, TX, she has forged a career in furniture design/making, creating an impressive portfolio of works and a stellar resume to match.
Leslie’s interest was initially peaked while perusing a handcrafted furniture catalog one morning while working as a nanny on break from college. She mentioned her interest and the father of the family who was an artist employed her to build shipping crates.
Nine months at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine served as her first official foundation in the craft. She went on to attend the Crafts and Design Program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, and also served as an apprentice under renowned furniture maker Michael Fortune.
As Leslie has now settled into Texas she continues to create limited small batch works as well as large and commercial productions. It is in this moment of her career that one can look both ways and see either a decorated past or a bright future. But her career and her fortitude weren’t built without some fiery tests from the industry as a single young female with obvious talent.
When asked if she felt like her gender had influence the direction of her work or her current emphasis within her craft, Leslie shared “I’m sure it has, though I don’t really have examples. I believe that gender is intrinsic to who we are and how we experience this world. And of course, that affects everything.”
Linda Lou Rocker – Leslie Webb
You can look at Leslie’s work and see the thoughtful delicacy in the fine angles of her favorite piece, the Linda Lou Rocker. Her approach to gentle strength within her design provides the viewer a feeling of softness intertwined with a striking, modern design. A fantastic blend of the feminine and masculine.
This balance is also sought by many women trying to find their voice within the industry. Webb shared experiences of doubt from men, whether they were selling her lumber at the hardware store or viewing her work on display at a show.
“At a show I did several years ago, I was actually told to my face by another male woodworker that he didn’t know a woman could build furniture, after insisting for 10 minutes that I must have male employees building everything for me. At the time it made me really mad, but now it just makes me sad for the women in his life. I can only imagine how little he must think of their capabilities.”
Webb also mentioned a public disdain for women within the educational realm. “During critiques, if you were a female and had a good crit, inevitably it would be mentioned that you were praised because the critic “loved the ladies”, not because you actually deserved it. It took me a long time to realize that these reactions and interactions actually had nothing to do with me, that they are just reflections of how other people see the world and gender.”
Lola – Leslie Webb
Despite the unfounded doubts in her competency Webb has created a very fine and unique style of design that splendidly combines sharp design with a comfortable feel. Her work has brought her many opportunities and Webb excitedly shared what’s on the horizon for her.
“Currently, I am working on a credenza/sideboard with sliding doors. I am pretty excited about it because it has been awhile since I made a large storage piece. This past fall I collaborated with Shay Spaniola of bunglo.co on a line of textiles for my Lola Lounge Chair. In the next few months, I will be introducing new pieces from that collaboration. I am also planning an upholstered version of the Linda Lou Rocker.”
You can view more of Leslie Webb’s work at lesliewebbdesign.com
Follow her:
@lesliewebbdesign
facebook.com/LeslieWebbDesign
For those wondering, Women of Woodworking is a new writing project I am excited to launch with this post. See this post and more on my Women of Woodworking landing page.
