Program Schedules:

December 12 - Gonzalo Rodriguez: A Designer’s Portfolio
Gonzalo just moved to Chicago from Detroit early this autumn. John Kriegshauser has seen examples of his work and commented that it places him among the CFDA's best. Plus he has an exceptional sense of how to present his work; a skill all of us need to acquire. Come see what he’s been up to.

January 9 - Lloyd Natof: Building a Collection of Speculative Pieces
Lloyd has, as many of us know from e-mailed invitations, taken off six months from his regular business to focus exclusively on creating a collection of speculative designs. In addition to presenting a slideshow of the pieces, he will talk about how he planned, financed and promoted this collection. Many of us know the fantasy. Lloyd will tell us how he actually did it.

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Announcement from CFDA President - Chris Brandel

    Hello Everyone! Well, if you're reading this, then you know we have some great news! The Newsletter format has been updated and I have to say, I think it looks Great ! Thanks to Judith Diasselliss, we have a modern, snappy format which gives us some great opportunities.     The plans for the newsletter are ambitious and we will need help getting it up to speed and keeping it going.
    One of the new features is a member profile every month, which will highlight the talents and accomplishments of one of our members so they can use it for their own publicity. How great is that to send out to your clients?
    Rob will do his best, but perhaps you might want to ask a friend to help write yours and give Rob a head start or let him in on some of the things you are doing.
   Another section will be articles from our members. Don't be hesitant to submit, even if it's just a short essay on what you've been researching lately...We need your help developing a stockpile of items to publish.
    Some other areas will be notes on upcoming shows or events related to the design field. If you know of something, send a note to get it in there.
    I think the overall image of this new format really portrays the qualities and talents of all of our members and, well-- I think that this gives us,each member the CFDA, the opportunity to do some great things for ourselves and the group, and just like everything else, it's what we do with our opportunities that we get to look back on.

Let's help Rob get this thing full !

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Announcement

    Starting with this December 2006 NEWSLETTER I have been asked by the CFDA Board of Directors to assume responsibility for the Newsletter. With the help of our website consultant, Judith Diasselliss the design has been improved with pictures and simplified text format, with links so you can jump from one section to another.    I hope to enrich the copy with more information about our monthly programs and the speakers, news about our members activities, and about shows or programs in town or away, technical items of possible interest, reports of other shows or exhibits, brief bios of our members with pictures of them and their works.     Now that we are fully online, a blog if you will, we are not restricted by printing and mailing costs to expand our coverage other than by our ability to gather material of interest and to present it in an interesting fashion, but with an eye to the time constraints of the work itself.
    Please do not expect this issue to be other than a work in progress. I think the Newsletter has potential to be of interest to our members and to others - not only the news media, other wood workers, galleries, but also our own interest in looking back to see what we have done. But it will take time and some effort to get there.
    As a beginning I report briefly on several recent and past activities such as the Form Follows Function Show, and Lloyd Natoff's Studio Show. I note a comment at the last meeting that Jeff Miller is nationally recognized as the author of the Chair Book published by the Taunton Press, and that John Kriegshauser was a featured speaker at the Furniture Society Show this summer , and pictured in Fine Woodworking in the October issue, for his work in tetrahedral-based furniture designs. I note that the Nest Chair by Emily Pilliton which was shown at the Cultural Center in the CFDA Sustainable Furniture Show last year was pictured in The New York Times.
    Enough to indicate that there is much that goes on among our membership and in our meetings that should be noted, lauded, and recorded.    I hope this Newsletter will be a step further in that direction.

-Robert Frazier, Editor

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CFDA Meeting Report:
November 14th

Meeting opened 6:50 PM
President's report:
Officers and committees have been put in place for the next year. See the last newsletter for a listing. Please consider helping on some of the committees.

Form Follows Function Show:
The consensus among exhibitors was that the Show went well. The pieces on exhibit were a good representation. Crate and Barrel showed up for a look. There was one inquiry about gallery representation and Chris will follow it up.

Saslo show possibilities:
No openings for the end of this year, maybe next year. Group comments indicated this has been a good show for several years but changes have made it more difficult to arrange. Should we pursue this in the future? Are there other galleries in the area that we should pursue?

If we want to be included in these galleries we need to be more persistent. This requires more aggressive follow up to inquiries and our own or joint PR to help generate traffic.

Will anyone in the group want to take on this challenge?

PR Committee:
Getting the mailing list together is important.

EVERYONE:
Please send your mailing contact information to the PR committee. This is for both your own good and the CFDA as a whole.

Aesthetic show:
Began Friday with 8 artisans in the show. Weather was a little rough on attendance but it still did well. The Sunday Tribune had the show in its calendar. People from the Association of Wood Art came through the show and they seemed to receive it well.

Membership Accomplishments:

Lloyd Natoff's studio open house and show was great.

Jeff Miller was in the ChicagoTribune with his book on chair making. This had gone out of print and is being reprinted. It has been the best selling book of the Taunton Press..

Barry Newstat made the Chicago Tribune also for his furniture piece and lecture at the show at the Aesthetic Eye.

Congratulations to all!

New Technology:
Lazerdynamics.com - check it out.

Furniture Show in Milwaukee:
Several people were up there this year. Is there any feed back? It was predominantly furniture with many large names like Thomas Moser and Boggs.

Events to take note of:

Massive change at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

SOFA

Milwaukee Art Museum show of Biedermeier Furniture

Next CFDA Meeting Program - Gonzalo Rodriguez, a designer's portfolio

MEETING PROGRAM
John Kriegshauser -- Ultra-light tetrahedral furniture.

It all started with a book case. He needed shelves, but had no money so he used scraps and sparingly so. With that project he realized how much wood can be wasted in furniture. Next he found some plans of artillery kites and was intrigued with the strength of the tetrahedral design.

Tetrahedral structures are "math-intensive" to do properly and keep all angles correct. Next came the connections. He uses wood balls with tapered holes as connectors to hold sharpened dowel struts without voiding the integrity of the joint. The dowels have to be carefully sanded so that the fit is perfect. He created special jigs for drilling the connectors.

This is a continual process improvement project and there was discussion about different materials and the benefits of uniform or not geometric patterns. The strength and the lightness of the chair that was the focus of discussion was remarkable to all who tested it by sitting on it and hefted it (under 2 lbs).

Thank you John!

Respectfully submitted, Bruce Horigan, Secy.

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Looking Back:

Form Follows Form Show

This show held in the Galvin Library of the Illinois Institute of Technology from Sept 21 to Nov 11, 2006 was considered a success by all. There were 20 exhibitors. Publicity was provided by a combination of effort and generous support by IIT and CFDA members. The show was curated by Robert J. Krawczyk, Gallery Director and Associate Professor in the College of Architecture. Jamie Stevens chaired the Show Committee for the CFDA. The theme of the show was to bring to furniture design some of the iconic designs of architecture. The furniture pieces were accompanied by photos and a brief statement illustrating the architectural inspirations. At this time we do not have figures on the attendance but the comments from many are very complimentary.

Pictures of the exhibit are available to anyone at the following website: www.Xdrive.com
Login with username - artiitstudio
Password - art123

Click on photos and download any that are of interest.

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Looking Back:

Natoff Studio Show

This show was held over two weekends and was an excellent opportunity to see Lloyd's newest pieces of furniture and the lay out of his shop space and machinery as well as to talk with him about how his methods.

MEETING PROGRAM John Kriegshauser -- Ultra-light tetrahedral furniture.

MEETING PROGRAM
John Kriegshauser -- Ultra-light tetrahedral furniture.