Andrew Pitts
- FurnitureMaker
Workshop Update 2009 No. 1
Hi Folks,
Welcome to my fifth semi-annual e-mail update. I
thought you would
be
interested in hearing more about my recent work and furniture
activities! It seems this year has been heavier than usual on the
"furniture activities", as you will see as you read on. I've linked
some information to sites on the
internet, so just click on the highlighted and/or underlined words.
Just
remember to come back for the rest of this letter! I hope you enjoy
the
reading.
I want to remind
you of an
interesting
feature to my
website.
It is a Work
in Progress page where I discuss how I am making some of my latest
pieces. On that page you will find photos of the work as it progresses,
plus lots of discussion of what I am doing and how I am doing it,
especially interesting to the woodworker! I hope you will find time to
browse the
pages.
In last
winter's newsletter I mentioned that I had decided to take the plunge
and enter my
work in some major furniture shows. In
March I exhibited in the Philadelphia
Invitational Furniture Show, held at the Cruise Ship Terminal at the
old Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. As I related, that brought
back a lot of memories, as I had drydocked two different Naval vessels
at "Philly" and had spent a lot of time in that yard. Also, I exhibited
at the Baltimore Fine Furnishings and Fine
Craft Show at the France-Merrick
Performing Arts Center, a spectacular building perfectly suited to fine
furniture. These shows were very professionally organized
and the furniture was exquisite. It would definitely be worth your
while to attend one or both of these shows next year! The booth I made
took
a lot more of my time this winter than I had expected, but I think the
end result really gave my furniture a home-like atmosphere. You be the
judge. By the way, I just now discovered that a shot of my booth
appeared in Woodshop News in an article about the Philadelphia show.
And, I did not restrict myself to out-of-town
venues; I also exhibited in Reedville during the Historic Garden Week
Tour. It was a lot of fun showing my latest work to my neighbors!
Speaking of shows, the Artisans Center of Virginia,
of
which I recently completed my term as a board member is trying out a
new concept of craft exhibition where a "traveling gallery" moves about
the State of Virginia so all of our citizens can enjoy the best in
Virginia craft. The first show, the pilot project is going to be at our
own Rice's Hotel & Hughlett's Tavern. I'll keep you in suspense
about who dreamed this up and is organizing it, but he is a
Northumberland County furniture maker! This first show will be August
15th and will be held in conjunction with the Farmer's Market. We have
juried artisans filling up the Transportation Museum and are about
ready to spill over into the Carriage house. Come on out to see us
between 9 AM and 3 PM on the 15th!
In
February I was invited to
speak at the
Lancaster County Library in a series entitled Sundays at Two. I gave a
lively (well, I thought so) Power Point presentation about how I mill
and dry my lumber and then build furniture. I had a packed house and
had a ball giving the talk. That's me in the photo showing how I
designed my carved Pedestal Cabinet. I still get comments and phone
calls from folks I met at the library. We are thinking of ways to do
this again,
this time in Northumberland County, so stay tuned.
Last year I
made
a complex piece called "A
Special
Cabinet". It was a cabinet that would
house a lift
television system, a showcase for a snuff bottle collection, and hidden
compartments for necklaces and earrings! Well, a very good client liked
the piece so much that he asked me to make a similar piece to fit in
his condominium. He didn't need the hidden compartments, but he did
want a showcase area for his fine porcelain and such, and it had to be
custom made for his television. This is what I finally delivered. I
call it my "Television
Showcase Cabinet" -- pretty catchy title! The photos show
the cabinet with the TV retracted, and with the TV
in the "up" position. The lift mechanism is controlled with a radio
frequency remote control so you can sit in your easy chair, or on your
bed and raise and lower the TV. I've got to admit, it is really cool!
Great
news! I've been published! A new book on the shelves called Studio
Furniture: Today's Leading Woodworkers by Tina Skinner
and
published by Schiffer Books has four pages dedicated to my work (and a
photo of me)! Here's a picture of the cover. If you look closely you
may
see a familiar face (and a familiar chair for one of my clients). Hint:
look in the lower left corner.
Another very nice development is that I was
interviewed by
Woodshop News for a profile
article. Woodshop News is one of the most widely read periodicals for
the custom furniture industry, and is targeted for the smaller shops. I
hate to count my chickens before they hatch, but I think it will make a
very nice article. More to follow when the date of the issue is
disclosed to me.
The Philadelphia Invitational Furniture Show is
starting a
new feature for collectors. It is a "Dutch Auction" on this website,
http://auction.philaifs.com/.
The way it works is something like this; a maker (like me) lists an
item of furniture on the site with a starting price, and each week the
price drops by a set amount until the minimum price (like reserve
price) is reached. You can bid for the piece for any week you want, and
come that week if the piece is not yet sold, you get it for that price.
You could get quite a deal, but don't wait too long or you might miss
out! I currently have two pieces on the site, so
why not come take a look.
This spring I taught two classes in my workshop,
organized in conjunction with the
Rappahannock Art League and Rappahannock Community College.
The first two-day class was about furniture design and joinery, while
the second class was about veneering, laminating, and
finishing. These were demonstration classes, as I have limited bench
space, but my students loved them, anyway. I'm going to take a break
from teaching, though, and get back to making furniture. Maybe later we
can start up the classroom again, especially if I get enough special
requests for classes.
I received a very interesting
commission in February. A local
couple had just lost a large persimmon tree and
was interested in
having it milled, dried, and turned into furniture. Now, I knew nothing
of persimmon so I quickly got on the internet and learned. It turns out
that persimmon is part of the ebony family and had striking dark
heartwood grain. But, it is very persnickety to dry without a lot of
warping and degradation. So, I picked up the logs (in the photo to the
left), milled the tree in the winter (in the photo to the right) and
quickly placed it in the solar kiln, my thinking that in the winter the
sun is low and the days are short, so the drying would be slow and the
planks could relax and lose their stresses without cracking and
bending. Well, so much for theory! Although we got a lot of very good
lumber, it was not without bending and cracking. Fortunately, we saw
this coming and milled the planks thicker than needed for the
furniture, so all is well. The lumber is out of the kiln and is
relaxing in my climate controlled wood storage area (aka shop
basement), and I will soon be designing a piece
specifically for the
lumber we got out of the tree. It is beautiful wood, and we expect it
to become a spectacular piece of custom furniture!
In January the Rappahannock Art League held a show
called "Black,
White and Shades of Gray". The idea was to produce a piece of art that
was
basically black and white with shades of
gray (an
aptly named show, indeed). That sounded interesting, and I already had
a germ of an idea for a cabinet, so I contemplated making it for the
show. The result was my "Shadows
of Night", seen at right. For this piece I used the lightest
woods I had, with bent laminations of holly for the sides and tulip
poplar for the doors. The back, which you cannot see, is maple. The
legs are bandsawn ebonized white oak, which means I dyed the oak black,
or nearly so. The top and bottom and inside drawer front (you will have
to go to my website to see that) are walnut, which I stained a bit
darker in the heartwood, leaving the sapwood white. To give the piece a
Chesapeake Bay charm, I carved a wetlands scene into the doors. I
really love this piece (and it is for sale)!
In June, Kathy and I attended the Furniture Society
Conference,
this year held at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. You have
heard me talk of the Furniture
Society before - it is a tremendous organization advancing the art
of furniture making. The conference is a gathering of hundreds of makers, educators and students,
collectors, museum and gallery professionals, historians, journalists,
and folks
who just like furniture and I always learn a great deal (and have a
great time). This year was no different, as the focus was the furniture
industry. We had an opportunity to tour two different furniture
factories, and it was eye opening, to say the least. And, I had the
personal opportunity to display Shadows of Night in the
Member's Gallery. In fact, the editor of Fine Woodworking Magazine
featured two shots of Shadows in his blog on
FineWoodworking.com.
I felt pretty good about that! By the way, if you feel strongly about
keeping the art of furniture making healthy, why not consider joining
the Furniture Society. You don't have to be a professional furniture
maker to be a member, in fact many members don't make furniture at all.
If you are interested, click here
for membership information.
Best
regards,
Andy Pitts