Upcoming Exhibition – Furniture With Soul at Gallery Naga in Boston, MA, USA
May 14, 2012
Work from the ten best furniture making workshops in the world are to be exhibited in Boston Throughout June and July 2012.
Based on the book ‘Furniture With Soul’ – Gallery Naga have collected work from Britain and America to show you the most exciting modern hand crafted furniture available today!
Featuring: Gary Knox Bennet, Jack Larimore, John Cederquist (see our video interview with John here), John Makepeace, Peter Danko, Judy KensleyMcKie, Thomas Hucker, David Savage, and Michael Hurtwitz.
Exhibition Opens June 1st and runs through until July 13th.
David Savage will be in attendance for a book signing of ‘Furniture With Soul’ from 5pm on Friday 1st June. The Furnituremakers will be at a reception between 6pm and 8pm.
See more about David’s book ‘Furniture with Soul’ here
Comments (0)
Diego Miscoria – Italian Fine Furniture Making
May 11, 2012
Good evening Mr. Savage,
My name is Diego Miscoria, I am from Trieste, Italy. On October 2010 I met you when I was visiting your Atelier. Well, you picked me up at the train station and took me to your Atelier. I do suppose that you meet so many people that you don’t remember me. I am self taught, the Italian guy that built boats for many years (you’ll probably remember me for that detail).
I came to your furniture workshop to get some more information because I wanted to take a year with you, but I could not take a course; only because I could not afford it.
After a couple of years and many efforts I have managed to build my own furniture business, here in Trieste.
I would like to know (though I am sure that you probably have more important things to spend time on) if you can take a look a my designs and just give me a short opinion. For me it is very important to have a point of view of my creations from a person like you. My website is:
I don’t want to occupy too much of your time.
Have a good day.
Diego Miscoria
Hi Diego,
Yes I remember you. I have looked at your site and I congratulate you. It is rare to see an Italian furniture designer/ maker. You could do well but you do need to tighten your designs. The forms are fluid and imaginative but lack what I can only call tension. This is a visual tension that is the difference between a bent steel rule and the floppy hanging rope. Both are curved but one is tight the other loose.
This and tighter more refined making and you will go far.
A good start Diego, but only a start, this is a long race you have embarked upon.
Well done my friend,
David
Hi David,
Thanks for your answer. You’re right, I see that my designs need to improve. I can see that there is “that something” that you call “tension” that makes the difference. I believe that will take more practice and time, and probably some lessons in furniture design. Meanwhile I am practicing almost every day.
I appreciate very much your point of view, probably the first one that gets the focus on subjects I need to improve.
Also, you’re right about refining my skills. Essentially I know almost every technique, but that doesn’t mean that I am good at them. In the past my work was more about being fast rather than fine woodworking because, in the end, everything was covered by plaster and then painted, also the interior furniture in the boats was very simple.
The positive side is that I know the wood, and it’s properties, very well (because of a lot of hand work) and I have very good experience in bending wood. Of course I am lacking a little regarding fine woodworking, that I am working on improving day after day.
Thanks again, your answer was very constructive for me.
Have a nice day.
Diego Miscoria
Diego, would you be kind enough to allow me to make our correspondence public ? it would i am sure encourage many young makers setting out, you may not feel it, but you are an inspiring example to many who want to do what you have done!
David
Hi David,
No problem, yes you can. If you think that this can help someone else – no problem.
I would like to add something that, probably, young makers are facing…
As I began everybody told me that I was crazy, they asked me why I left a good payed job to do something they think will not give me the same money. It was really hard to start with everything around going against me.
I guess that it will take me no less than 7 to 10 years to start to create a name and a reputation.
The most two difficult parts for me now are:
1) Accept that in the beginning you have to work for so little money, doesn’t matter how good your work is. You have to accept that you are starting to build something from zero. I never forget that every single piece I create/build, and every word I say (or not) to a client will be part of my reputation.
2) It is very difficult to do exactly the kind of work I plan/dream to do. What I think is a good design my client does not always think the same, or their budget is not enough.
As this is a full time job for me I work a great many hours more than others (and I mean MANY HOURS, no Saturdays or Sundays), sometimes I accept doing pieces that I would prefer to reject; I’ve started to earn some money only after almost a year.
But all that pain gives me a reason others doesn’t have. I want to reach something and have to find the way; no matter what.
I am very far from my furniture dreams and I am still working on many issues and mainly regarding my designs and the quality of my work.
It was a difficult decision to start, for my pocket it was very hard, I didn’t choose the easiest profession, the economic moment is not the best, but there is something have in mind, I am not going to quit.
Thanks again David.
Diego Miscoria
Comments (0)Barbecue Time…..
May 10, 2012
The BARK Bash was just a warm up for the Big Thrash the: TEXAS RIBS AND HOG ROAST SPECIAL. This is going to be on Saturday May 19th here at Rowden. Soooo…. wish us good weather, and come along. £20 per family, current students, old students, staff and families, Woody Nooz Readers, Short Course students, past and present , even magazine editors. All welcome. Its gonna be fun. Let us know you are coming as pigs don’t get bigger by magic.
Comments (0)Glad to be of service
May 9, 2012
Dear David
I have corresponded with you before, but this time it’s not about wood, just about what proved to be a timely reminder. I was coming to the end of several hours of drilling with a diamond tipped bit to get through 15 mm thick sandstone tiles in a house we have been renovating – all in the process of fitting various elements of bathroom furniture, like loo roll holders and the like. One can only drill for a few seconds, then one has to dip the bit into water to remove grit and sludge or bits of core and cool the bit. So it is indeed very laborious and I was getting tired and irritated and a mistake was looming. Then my Blackberry pinged in my pocket and I took a break to see what had arrived. The headline was sufficient – Focus, focus, focus …… Thank you for a timely reminder. A more pragmatic response than perhaps you wanted to draw, but the reminder was valuable in the context I was working at the time.
Roger Wicks
- – - – - – - – -
Yes, David, focus, focus, focus. At the object, at the play, at the activity in hand. And simultaneously…inward. Within. Aware of the inner world as a part of that focus.
As I read through your missive, Suddenly I was reading a piece by a writer involved with evolutionary consciousness, or cosmology, not you. Which explains why I enjoy your comments on planes and tools and other earthly matters. There’s always a depth to them beyond just making furniture.
cheers,
greg
BARK comes to Rowden
Bark Furniture www.barkfurniture.com is such a great name for a young inventive furniture making company. Here at Rowden Workshops we were fortunate to be able to get the directors of BARK to come and tell us about what they are doing. Jonathan and Lakshmi are 2 former students of The David Savage Atelier. Jonathan being here about 4 years ago and Lakshmi 2 years ago. They gave as a stunning presentation of how far a small business can get in only two recessionary years.
Anyone who says it is not possible to make a good business making furniture in England needs to look at BARK. They instill the very idea of Hand Made, English, Quality, Furniture Making at the very centre of their brand identity. “Ah! You are the people who do the quality.” as a major buyer told them at a London show.
BARK talked openly about going to their first exhibition and designing a first collection of furniture. Then about establishing a routine of bringing out a new collection TWICE A YEAR. They developing the first website gaining invaluable press and PR coverage providing the press with images and text when they needed it “within ten minutes usually. ” They talked of second exhibitions, gaining international customers and a second website and new PR consultant. All in two years, Inspirational!
True it yourself
May 5, 2012
Dear David,
Just a quick thank you for your highly informative take on tools. I agree with everything you said but have had to get by without spending out on expensive planes. Bought old second hand record and stanley and tuned them myself. Nothing is more satisfying than a old untidy looking plane made to work wonders with wood.
I now have one or two Japanese planes too.
I\’m guessing chisels with the mysterious bow is because a final heat treatment (after) trueing is much cheaper than trying to shape/true up to very flat – a fully hardened steel chisel. As a beginner in knife making I have learned this the hard way!
Loved your article and learned a lot.
Best wishes currently teaching and making things in South Korea
Alec Hargreaves
Comments (0)No holds barred censorship
May 4, 2012
Thank you, David, for these no-holds-barred email newsletters. I agree with you regarding the Lee Valley/Veritas planes. I made the mistake of posting your comments, along with mine, on a popular US woodworking forum and was promptly banned by the moderators as it is a forum visited frequently by Rob Lee of Lee Valley, and they brook virtually zero criticism of Lee Valley’s products. Rob made the claim, basically, that it was “impossible for fully stress relieved ductile iron to move in service.” I attempted a more or less gentle retort that perhaps something went awry in the process. That didn’t go over very well at all.
I attempted to make the argument that your comments, as coming from an obviously highly accomplished and influential (if not ‘famous’) furnituremaker, ought to be taken very seriously. Unfortunately, it was all passed off (and the thread ultimately deleted) as your disengenous bias on behalf of Clifton. I think this, of course, is hogwash.
Best,
Charles Stanford
Hi Charles
So you are the cause of my fame. I have been getting calls from Veritas suppliers here in the UK asking “why I was so rude about Veritas”. They are sending me three planes to check, and review which will I guess be pre-checked and very flat.
Can you give me the copies of your posting and especially Rob’s reply. Like Tom LN he is a nice guy but doesn’t like criticism and to admit that he cannot control ductile cast steel is a step forward. We have never supported any tool munufacturer and have sent back 2 Clifton planes this year so you exchanges with Rob are important.
All the best
David
I should also say that I REALLY APPRECIATE your tool reviews. I believe what you say and I believe you are totally unbiased and on the side of the woodworker and not beholden to any particular tool manufacturers.
Thanks,
Charles
Comments (0)The Shiney Chore
May 2, 2012
Hi David,
yes I agree polishing is a chore, and I could not agree with you more when you say everybody and his dog is using wire wool and wax, another thing that irritates the hell out of me is the crazy obsession everyone has to blather oil over everything and I mean everything, have we all got shares in an arab oil state? seems to me its just a lazy option, do people not use shellac any more? I sometimes have had to knock back a high shine with 320 paper and I often rub two pieces together just to take the edge off it a bit,well that all thanks for the rant I feel better now
cheers Peter
Comments (0)Inspired to Make
April 30, 2012
David,
I haven’t forgotten about you. I don’t go on Facebook often but I did today, and I saw a few posts by you, and that took me to your website, where I have been noodling aound for more than an hour. I am amazed every time I do this. Your students are quire clever and quite good at design, as you know. Chairs, boxes, tables, wall cabinets all take on new looks — fresh looks.
I don’t see anything like this in the US. I used to get on “Knots” which was sponsored by Fine Woodworking, but it hasn’t had much traffic for a few years. So I went to The Burl, which was fine for a while, but it too is dying. Mostly “kitchen makers” and folks who have no interest in “moving forward”. Too bad. So when I need a jolt of fresh creativity, and when I need to be reminded what students can do, I visit your website, which is getting very very large. One can noodle around for a long time.
Attached are some photos of my work during the past year. It has been an eclectic year: a guitar (copy of Martin D-28 Dreadnought), some chairs ( dowel chair, Arts and Crafts chair, Queen Anne side chair, Chippendale arm chair, a Queen Anne style chest of drawers, a simple but nice mirror frame and a desktop for an old treadle sewing machine. The last is made of curly red oak, an interesting wood that I have never worked with before.
I am lost in the past, as the photos show. Arts and Crafts, Queen Anne and Chippendale. Not exactly futuristic. But I enjoy period reproductions. It does require a discipline and a good deal of study as well as skill to get right. When it comes to my “own designs”, I tend to work with beautiful wood, and design in a very understated way (mirror frame and desk on treadle sewing machine. I am having fun. I can see you are too.
Mel
Hi Mel
How lovely to hear from you. Your work is developing and i admire your determination and focus. Making is a great pastime and so few just do it. But you do! Well done man and thanks for sharing this. Can I post this lots of people would be encouraged to get going by what you are doing?
With best wishes
David
Comments (0)Modern British hand tool manufacturers just don’t seem to “get it”
April 29, 2012
Good morning to you David,
It’s refreshing to hear what a useful review should tell you all of the time, warts and all.
It has baffled me for some time why the remaining British manufacturers just don’t seem to either get it or be bothered to achieve it, as with Sorby in this case or Marples et al who seem to constantly fall short of the mark now being set by others.
However, there is some hope for us all!
With notable commentary such as yours, they might start to realise that “maybe we have got it wrong!” and if that fails we will have to keep putting it right ourselves, but at least we can now do it on a glorious British Summertime morning like today.
Thanks for your ongoing inspiration.
David
Aspiring Woodworker
Nottingham
Hi David
Thank you for your e-mail, you are right, they need to see that things have moved on and we wont accept nonsense any more, we know too much and we talk to one another.
kind regards
david savage