CFDA Newsletter

Announcements:

BOARD ELECTIONS:
The results of the election for the CFDA Board, which may be the firstcontested board election, are as follows:

Lisa Elkins, Phil Haywood, John Kriegshauser, Lloyd Natof, Matt Seiler, Dolly Spragins, Chris Brandel, Hal Link, Bill Groot and Lisa Brophy.

The unsuccessful candidates, all valued CFDA members, remain vulnerable to nomination for officer positions.

KUDOS : This month revealed four of our regular active members having some outstanding press. Besides Tor's article in Woodwork magazine (already touted), Celia Greiner, Jeff Miller and Lloyd Natoff have the auspicious honor of being included in the most recent Contemporary Designs special issue of Fine Woodworking. It's their first such compendium since their Design Book 7, which was published in 1996.

Program Schedules:

October 14 - Casting Your Own Hardware. John Kriegshauser will explain the process he went through to design and make the pulls for his Tansu Cabinet, which is in the Rising From Ashes Show.
John will explain both the aesthetic and technical aspects of this design and fabrication effort. This should be a great primer on hardware design for those interested in undertaking the process themselves.

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CFDA Meeting Report:

CFDA Meeting Minutes - September 9, 2008

16 members and one guest in attendance

Chris Brandel called the meeting to order at 7:15PM, congratulating Dolly and John on the amazing amount of press that the Rising From Ashes show has been getting. The level of print and television media attention that this show has been getting is unprecedented for us and our co-Chairs are to be commended.

The Deceptive Furniture and Furnishings show is coming along nicely. Pieces are to be delivered to the Cultural Center on Wednesday, October 8th, with an opening reception on Friday, October 10th.

Lloyd reported that the treasury is fluid, and that he's waiting for some outstanding RFA show bills to be sent to him before he cuts any checks. Loosely speaking we've got between three and four thousand dollars in our account.

John handed around ballots for the Board elections, from which ten people will be selected. The officers will then be chosen by the board. Positions for President, Vice President and Treasurer will need to be filled.

John mentioned that the representatives from both Design Within Reach as well as Haefele will respectively be selecting which pieces from the Ashes show that they'd like to have for their time as a host venue. We are still awaiting a decision from the State Museum system, but given recent budgetary shakeups within the state system we're not surprised that there's been a focus on other things for the moment. More followup will happen in the coming weeks.

The Village of Homewood may come back onto the table as a possible venue for the Ashes show, as well. Jim Tresouthick, the village's Forrester, has been in contact with us and that dialog has resumed.

And the Ryerson Woods portion of the traveling Ashes show will kick off with a reception on September 21st.

The business meeting concluded at 7:35

Program:
John Gush, Bespoke Furniture

John originally hales from South Africa, with time spent living in New Jersey, Canada, England and now the Chicago area. Although trained as a chemist, John has a natural aptitude for building furniture.

He reports that he originally began making his own furniture from necessity, and that he's most at home in the Federal style. His pieces are very faithful representations of the type of furniture found in this period.

To aid in the discussion of furniture, John periodically referred to a wonderful chart which showed a timeline and the various names of furniture styles found on both sides of the Atlantic and generally within the English and American traditions. We found it interesting how the style names and durations extended past eachother, indicating a definite lag time between what was in vogue when in each culture.

Photographic examples of Jacobean furniture revealed very crude reverse sides, and riven oak as a main motif. This created structural members that were generally triangular in cross section. The William and Mary period demonstrate a lot of black lacquer work with Oriental motifs.

While in the Newport area here in the States we see the Goddard and Townsend families producing some spectacular work, such as a kneehole desk.

The Queen Anne period is reportedly dominated by the use of walnut, and the chairs that John showed off from this period sported carved legs and back splats.

Chippendale furniture, as it was known in the U.S., has a close cousin called Georgian in the UK. Understandably, after the Revolutionary War we didn't particularly want to be reminded of King George. But the motifs in the furniture styles are very close to one another. The material was dominantly from mahogany, taken from the West Indies during that period of heavy sea trade. Rococo styles from this period of history show a trend towards a great deal of ornamentation, with heavily carved ball and claw feet and other sorts of very painstakingly carved motifs.

The Federal period, from the 1770's to the 1810's, generally, features work by such designers as Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Interestingly, these were not makers, but designers. They published design books. The designs were then taken up by the makers of the day and reproduced in great quantity.

Furniture from this period features straight lines, the use of veneers and far fewer carvings than in earlier pieces. The structure of chairs and tables now featured stretchers, since the legs were now finer and thinner. One of the most outstanding collections of this furniture can be found at Winterthur, and is considered a treasure trove of this sort of furniture.

As John continued showing various historical pieces it became plane to see how furniture from here in the States was directly influenced by other styles from Europe. We saw strikingly clear echoes of French Empire, Biedermeier and Regency furniture, as well as leanings toward the Greco-Roman flavors that populated Europe during that time period. Clearly there was a large amount of communication happening across the Atlantic, with a great deal of influence being cross-pollinated between the furniture traditions in both locations.

With this framework established, John segued to his own pieces. His pieces are exceptional in their craftsmanship and their history. Yet, he professes to have started out with a radial arm saw and some basic hand tools. Clearly the tools don't make the craftsman. His work is simply outstanding, despite the report of a modest working environment.

John displayed for us a dresser of imbuya, a copy of a Cape Dutch bench from something called 'stinkwood', Cape Dutch chairs, a demilune table of yellowwood and more stinkwood, a corner hutch, a Chippendale-style hanging cupboard, a Federal-ish bent-leg piano bench, and a Georgian-style desk. The desk was one of three that he's made, for each of his sons. The first was of walnut veneer, the second was of curly maple solids and the third of cherry veneer. They sported inliad initials and are actually mean to knock down for easy moving. The style and craftsmanship was nonpareil, and the fact that they each broke down to thirteen pieces for transportation shows not only attention to detail, but excellence in engineering.

John's work has been featured on the back cover of Fine Woodwork magazine, and has been featured in the Society of American Period Furniture Makers. In all, we were treated to the work of a gentleman whose works inspired us to greater heights within our craft, as well as an honorable tribute to the styles of bygone days.

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Member Profile:
Kurt Vannucci

For most of my adult life, I worked with Fortune 500 companies steadily moving up the corporate ladder. There was something always missing for me, but rather than accept that an office job didn't suit me, I moved from role to role thinking perhaps I would find something I was meant to do. I began with my CPA in audit and finance, worked my way to an MBA, transitioned into Operations, then Sales Management, then Marketing and finally into Business Intelligence and Strategy. While this made for an impressive resume, I never truly embraced the professional life I chose.

I've always thought of myself as an artistic person, but I had yet to find an outlet to express my instincts and ideas. As a gift, my wife signed me up for a woodworking class and I was immediately hooked. The ability to shape otherwise ordinary wood into a beautiful piece of furniture fit so perfectly with my need to work with my hands and express myself creatively. It was in those classes I realized that making beautiful hand crafted furniture was my calling.

After some initial setbacks, I came across Lloyd Natof, a deeply talented craftsman who was willing to help me fulfill my passion for woodworking. For the next year, I learned as much as I could from him. Though never easy, the education I received was priceless. When I was ready, I decided to move out on my own and start Vannucci Custom WoodWorks ( www.vannucciwoodworks.com ).

To me, fine woodworking is the intersection of physical strength and precision. The robust medium of wood and the brute force of machinery meets the delicate hand of a craftsman and the love and passion of the artist. I often photograph a project throughout its life and each time I'm astonished by how something so raw can be worked into a thing of beauty.

As an artist, I continually I strive to incorporate the client's aesthetic desires while suggesting design components that compliment the work as a whole. As a craftsman, I believe the importance of the look of a completed work is equal to the touch. I take special pride in my brushed-on finishes, sanded and polished to a supple rich softness.

I am currently displaying a blanket chest at the Rising from the Ashes traveling exhibit through early 2009. The primary component of the chest is Ash that was harvested after being damaged by the Emerald Ash Borer. Although the tree had to be harvested, the wood was salvaged and used in an environmentally responsible way to create many projects including my blanket chest.

My shop is currently located in the Fulton Carroll Building just North-West of downtown Chicago where I work with exotic and domestic veneers and solid hardwood to make both stand alone furniture and built-ins.

Ashes Chest : Sapele and Ash

Futatsu Cabinet :
Wenge, Jatoba Lattice, Sapele Base and Japanese Paper

Radach Desk Makore and Wenge