CFDA Newsletter

Program Schedules:

PLEASE NOTE: The March Program will be on -What have you been doing- So bring slides, models, finished pieces or catastrophes and tell us all about it. Bridgette Buckley will give her presentation on My Work in April.

March 13 - What Have You Been Doing?
Come share what you've been working on and learn what everyone else has been doing. Bring pictures, models, details and questions; it's show and tell!

April 10 - Bridgette Buckley: My Work.
Bridgette lived in Copenhagen prior to returning to Chicago in 2005 and is currently designing for the Holly Hunt Collection as well as creating her own furniture and artwork. She also teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and got involved with the CFDA just prior to the Form Follows Form show. This is a chance to get acquainted with Bridgette and her work.

May 8 - Dolly Spragins: My Work.
Dolly is not exactly a new member, but we know her more from her efforts promoting the Form Follows Form show than from her work. And her piece in that show indicates that she's capable of the unusual. This is a chance to see more.

June 9 - Bruce Horigan: Urban Forest Products. (This is a Saturday Morning!!)
This will be a tour of Bruce's saw mill, dry kiln and lumber shed, an explanation of his business and a wonderful opportunity to spend a Saturday morning in the emerging suburbs!

July 10 - Lisa Elkins: My Work.
Lisa is another nearly new member. She currently teaches at UIC as a day job, and as we all saw at the Form Follows Form show, she is an accomplished designer. Let's see more.

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CFDA Meeting Report:
February 13th

The meeting was called to order by the Chairman of the Executive Board, John Kriegshauser. Attendance was limited to four members and two guests - perhaps due to the cold and snow. The Chairman reported on the news of the new program by the city and county to fight the ash borer epidemic that is killing many ash trees in the metropolitan area. Bruce Horigan will be processing the lumber and will be able to make the lumber available at low cost. Related to this is the discussion with the Morton Arboretum regarding the possibility of using as the site for a show using the ash salvaged from the tree removal program. There is also a possibility of obtaining a federal grant to help arrange a show. The deadline for an application is February 2008 which if successful would make a show using this support in May 2008 or later. The Arboretum staff will not be able to help us pursue this grant.

Matt Speer, who is a member of the local Green Building Council, reported that the Annual Meeting of the Green Building Council be held in Nov. 2007 in Chicago and this could be a place for another show.

The Chairman reported that the show being planned with the Industrial Designers Assoc. is still looking for a theme.

The Editor of the Newsletter, Rob Frazier, reported that there are still 3-4 bad addresses which he will try to correct with help from Lloyd Natof. He is also working on better publicity for the speakers by putting their photo at the beginning of the Newsletter, and by announcing the topic at the beginning of the NL. In addition the complete list of topics and speakers is listed in the Jan NL which is a hot link in the masthead info and therefore available at any time.

The two guests were interested in the purpose and function of the CFDA and asked questions about availability of information on resources and meetings and could this, if it exists, be publicized in the NL. They also suggested that member profiles be published on the website.

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Meeting Program:
Jan Sopoci on the subject: How Come I Can't Sell?

Jan opened his comments with reflections on the frustration of his efforts to sell at shows despite his business training and experience. From this he has learned that one must think like a person in business, not as an artist. We are manufacturers. Ask yourself -- What am I?

What do I make? Custom furniture? Not sharp enough, too vague. What kind of furniture? For example - Jeff Miller built a reputation on the manufacture of chairs.

Focus on a product e.g. coffee table. Then establish a price point. Probably best to stick to the higher end market since at the low end - under $500 - you are in competition with the large scale manufacturers. Retail values of $1000- $2000 where you can expect to get about half have a better potential.

Do market research. Check magazines, catalogs, identify trends, e.g. green/sustainability.

Establish your product line. Get the learning curve well under way (there may always be room but not always time for improvement when you when you are in a big project). Don't try to branch into new areas all the time. Jan cited Lloyd Natof's talk and the simply designed and less expensive Beeline furniture that he sells for maintaining regular cash flow- i.e. 'bread and butter'.

Consider developing gift items - under $200 for impulse buyers- ex. book ends, dictionary stand, utensils, projects that can be used for training apprentices or assistants.

When marketing your furniture check with galleries. Try consignment sales, e.g. through Sawbridge Studio.

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Member Profile:
...and Comment by Bill First

Bill teaches photography at Columbia College and in addition maintains a shop where he designs and builds furniture. The following paragraphs contain some photography tips he has found useful.

Getting More Impact with your Furniture Photography

They say you cannot judge a book by its cover, but I do feel you can judge a piece of furniture by its' photograph! In other words, how the piece is photographed has a lot to do with the impact it will have on the viewer. Over the years I have tried different approaches to photographing my furniture. At first I tried the straight studio approach, setting the piece on a seamless background paper or fabric, adding lights, shooting many polaroids, and making the necessary changes prior to exposing the film. The result was good but kind of sterile and did not give the viewer any indication of how the piece might look in a practical application. Then I photographed my furniture within a room scene, with real walls and a floor and this approach started to give more meaning and function to the piece. But there was still something missing,...props! When I had my commercial photography business the prop stylists used to say that propping a photograph would soften the hard edges. In order for furniture to entice the viewer, I believe that the more realistic the setting, the better. By adding props such as vases filled with flowers, framed photographs on the wall, carpets, windows in the background, and other pieces of furniture or accessories, my images seem to come alive and have a real function and purpose, instead of a piece of furniture sitting on paper!

Recent advantages with digital photography enable us to see our pictures immediately. We can examine our compositions, exposures, lighting, and placement of props, etc. This is huge, because it saves us time and money when photographing difficult subjects such as furniture. We can see highlight and shadow detail, and make sure there are no obstacles in the frame such as light stands, cards, or power cords. Post-production work and retouching are much easier now with software applications such as Adobe Photoshop®. It's easy to correct for contrast, color balance, density, perspective, and retouch unwanted flaws.

A few final tips to remember, I always base my lighting techniques on natural lighting, the sun. And since we only have one sun this means that shadows should only flow in one direction. Nothing bothers me more that to see a photograph of a table and the shadows from the legs are going in two opposite directions. These are called cross-shadows and

should be avoided. Try and position the main lighting so that it's all coming from only one side. This will avoid cross-shadows and will give your lighting a pleasant, directional feel that moves across your furniture and will highlight the textures and dimensions of your piece.

And lastly, furniture designers spend long hours designing and fabricating their furniture.

When it comes time to photograph your finished piece, that same care and attention to detail should apply. Your customers do not see the painstaking long hours it took you to build the piece; they only see your photograph!

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News Notes:

Barry Newstat will be in a group show in a gallery in Aspen, CO during the month of March.

I am sure most of us saw the cover picture of Jeff Miller and his article on building book shelves in this month's issue of Fine Woodworking.

John Kriegshauser provides this review of the instructive and entertaining evening, and the furniture on exhibit, at the Moser showroom last week.

Moser's New Furniture Offerings
David Moser, Thomas Moser's son, made a presentation on Thursday evening, Feb. 22, at their Chicago showroom of new products that have been added to their collection. These are items for which he was largely responsible for the design. There was standing room only for this event and several CFDA members were in attendance including Chris David, Bill First, Rob Frazier and his wife, Bruce Horigan and his wife and myself.

As you would expect from the Moser firm the designs are beautifully finished and executed. Thomas Moser became famous because of his Windsor chair with the spirally laminated crest rail. No question about it, that chair was an instant classic and qualifies him for the Furniture Design Hall of Fame, whenever someone gets one together. That chair translated a period design into a contemporary piece making it timeless. That chair speaks of simplicity, purity and genuineness, and it quietly defies the noise and frenzy of 21 st century life by projecting an aura of timelessness and tranquility.

Not every design can meet this very high standard, but the new offerings to the Moser line that were featured at this reception, are not just lesser designs, in my opinion they represent a surprising change of direction by this much admired firm. The first was a dining chair with a fluted back. Though it was, again, beautifully made, it had none of the virtues of the established Moser line. It did not have the crystalline ring of wholeness and perfection. Instead, it looked to me like a rustic imitation of a Parisian Art Deco chair. It looked as if they quarried history to find a particularly decorative and sensational source of inspiration that is wholly inconsistent with the simplicity and honesty of their craftsmanship.

Then there was sofa/armchair/end table group that was made out of hardwood planks on the scale of 2 x 6's. To give the group a distinctive quality the legs were rotated at 45 degrees. The result was clumsy and bulky; a far cry from the fluid elegance of Moser's original chair. David Moser sited an oriental inspiration for this group, though they referenced no pieces I am familiar with.

Two famous Danish designers, Kaare Klint and Hans Wegner, also reached back into tradition and used historical designs as inspiration for the creation of exciting, modern pieces. They, like Moser, worked in a vocabulary of hardwoods and natural materials using machine assisted craftsmen to produce very sophisticated work. Moser's original chair can stand alongside the best of these Danish designers' work. The Mosers, in my opinion, are perfectly poised to continue the approach established by these renowned Danish designers, and I wish they would.