CFDA Newsletter

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

See below for the 2008 Program Schedule!

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Program Schedules:

January 8- Goodbye Mortise and Tenon: Design Alternatives from India and Mexico. Tor Faegre will show alternative construction systems that he has learned from the craft traditions of India and Mexico. To us these are quite unorthodox, but Tor will show how he has attempted to apply these ideas and methods in his own work.

February 12- David Orth on Design. Everyone was uplifted by the insights David shared in his last presentation. The specific title and subject of this next presentation are still in development.

March 11- Where Do We Get Design Ideas? John Kriegshauser will lead a forum on this very relevant topic. After all, we have pieces to create for the two upcoming shows! John will explain how notable design luminaries generate their ideas, as well as where he goes to get his. Dolly Spragins has volunteered to weigh in on the subject. This is a membership participation topic; share your pet ways of generating ideas, and learn everyone else's.

Not yet scheduled- The Design of Large Tables. Chris Brandel will lead a forum on the issues pertaining to the design of large tables. Dolly Spragins, Bill First and John Kriegshauser will join in to share their own insights into the mysteries of large table design. Come and share your own experiences too.

Not yet scheduled- The Craft Schools. Let's hear about what goes on at the craft schools that have established themselves around the country from people who've been there. We're talking about Andersen Ranch (Barry Newstat?), Penland (Tim Cozzens), Marc Adams (Still need someone) and the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship (Tor Faegre). Can anyone think of a school we should add to this list?

Future Months:
The following programs are in the pipeline but are still under development.
Look for specifics in the future newsletters.

- The Design of Built in Cabinets

- Presenting Your Designs to Customers

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CFDA Meeting Report:

CFDA Minutes - December, 2007

Nine members were in attendance, with two visitors. Hal Link and Barbara Beijas joined us for the evening. Hal concentrates on medieval and gothic furniture, and Barbara is a graphic designer and is recently exploring Craftsman-style work.

Per Chris, the IDSA joint show budget is being put together right now. But there's still a big need for volunteers. Per the Cultural Center, $600 will be granted to us, which will likely go straight towards advertising. We're anticipating mailing out 20,000 post cards and will be looking for print magazine publicity. Pedestal and room painting will be done by the Cultural Center, and possibly the cost of the labels for show pieces.

The opening reception is to be held on October 17th, to coincide with the availability of Barbara Crane, a noted photographer. And the Cultural Center will spring for the cost of wine and cheese.

We're still going to have to wrangle the logistics and expenses of moving the items. But we have a little bit of time, as the show dates are set as October 11th of 2008 through January 5th, 2009.

The get-together event between IDSA and CFDA members is still TBA, but we're reasonably expecting a February/March time frame.

We've also received an email reach-out from Hillcross Furniture, in the UK, looking to establish reciprocal website links. Per John, we'll need to carefully consider this, as we want to make sure that any links we establish are to organizations or individuals that we'd be proud to link to - not merely a link for the sake of having a link.

And David Dilworth at Ryerson Woods has also reached out to us and we'll have to establish a reciprocal effort.

Per Chris, we've had some decent web traffic on the CFDA site. As of the first week of December there were 12,906 page loads and 10,700 unique hits. Per Judith we're getting about 1,000 hits per month.

Matt suggested that we get stats on where the traffic is originating from in order to get a sense of how people are getting to us. So we'll need to get names and stats for the referring websites. It's possible that this information will allow us to proactively increase our traffic (and thus our overall profile in the world) instead of passively reporting on how many people are reaching us today.

John suggested that we start thinking about the ways in which we get our ideas for our furniture. About the actual idea generation process, as well as the designers that we admire. He asks that if anyone has any thoughts they'd like to share with the group to please contact him to volunteer.

We round-tabled the idea of sharing details about the processes for our individual proposals and pitch/sales cycle to help elevate everyone to a common average. And it'd also be an interesting thing to get a general sense of the tooling in each of our shops, in case someone has a specialized need that can be met within our group.

Then it was mentioned that the Philadelphia Invitational Furniture Show is going to be held in March. Lloyd is apparently going to dip his toe into this marketplace and has further details if needed.

The business meeting was concluded at 7:35

PROGRAM:

Armoires and large cabinets that we have made or which inspire

Rob Frazier presented a centuries-old piece that originally hailed from Spain, and which he's modified into serving as a liquor cabinet. John related this to a Gaudi and Rococo variant. Dolly mentioned that it strongly reminded her of Santa Fe / Colonial Southwest furniture.

Lloyd presented several of his pieces. The first was a piece from a matching set that originated from a show that he held at his shop last year. It was a veneered piece in bubinga, with poplar, curly white ash and sycamore veneers and solids. The second piece he presented was from his "J" line, which was a case on drawers and which is used to store clothing. This third cabinet was LARGE, and which he describes as an obsolete format. It's over seven feet wide and over seven feet tall and which was a mirror-image set of cases around a center section for a television. The frame and panel work was from dimensional stock and it also sported MDF-core commercial veneer sheet goods. His fourth piece was a tall case that reminded the group of Biedermeier pieces. It includes sliding doors and solid stock. This piece was all about TV and component storage and the construction was a theme and variation on frame and panel construction.

John shared six pieces with the group. The first was carpenter built, layer-on-layer and which sported a high degree of ornamentation. It's the sort of work that just isn't done so much any longer from either a practical or a craftsmanship standpoint. The second piece was described as "a pile of parts that come together with engineering as well as craft". It was a Rococo piece with a pediment base and very solid woodwork and is held together by large craft-made bolts and hand cut screws. The third piece was a contemporary cabinet with an analog to knife hinges. John remarked that the placement and positioning of this type of hinge can be... trying... at times. The fourth piece was a veneer core plywood TV armoire. It was a frameless construction and was apparently prone to racking problems. It required a good bit of shimming at the floor in order to get the reveals to line up politely. And interestingly, it didn't have handles. Rather, it had lock escutcheons and the key was intended to serve as a handle. The fifth piece was a veneer core chiffarobe finished in a French-polished shellac. It sported an arch top and two doors with four drawers. Next up was a feature that he designed for Workbench Magazine. It was a painted piece made from MDO. John designed it and they reportedly paid for the materials and wrote the text for the article. It used flipper doors, but those posed a bit of a challenge. The question became how you support shelves without an intermediate/internal cabinet to be built inside the cabinet. The solution, for good and bad, was shelf standards and commercial shelf brackets. And his last piece was reminiscent of either a Viennese Viener Verkschtadt aesthetic that, in historical perspective, looked strikingly like Deco. It was built as a single piece and was designed by an architect. But as such, because of its size and the fact that it's not modular, it's a bit impractical.

We round-tabled some common challenges at this point, regarding pocket door technologies and the build realities that they create. Lloyd has reportedly had good luck with the Accuride models and recommends them. And we also talked about hinge technologies and the limitations that that places on us in engineering and fabricating our pieces.

Dolly presented four pieces. The first was an entertainment center meant to hold CD's. The piece is a bit anthropomorphic and was inspired by the client's small daughter. The pediment looks like a crown, the skirt boards actually are carved and flare like a skirt (inspired by the client's daughter wearing a tou-tou). The clients let Dolly place the piece in a show and it garnered quite a bit of attention. Her second piece was a monster-like cabinet with a carved lower skirt and large feet. It was made from anigre, pickled lacewood and bubinga. And the client also had her make a matching set of bookcases. The third piece was a casework piece made from solids and veneers. And, as Dolly put it, "I've settled down quite a bit" when she showed this piece. The fourth piece was a media cabinet in sycamore and pickled maple and which had knife-like hinges that she actually fabricated.

Bill First presented three pieces. The first was a solid mahogany bath cabinet. The delivery and installation realities required the piece to be transported up a rather narrow set of stairs and so the piece needed to be disassembled for transport and then rebuilt in the bath. The second piece was another field-assembled piece. It was solid ash and was over six feet wide, six feet tall and over two feet deep. This piece required a good bit of engineering as well as craft. Its purpose in life is to be able to be broken down and transported according to the owner's somewhat nomadic lifestyle. Bill's third piece was an oak double armoire done in a cherry stain. It disassembles in sections for moving and serves mostly as a big toy cabinet for the owner's children. This piece featured sixteen pieces of stained glass (but alas, no lights behind them, per the customer's request).