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Executive Board Election - John Kriegshauser In the CFDA the members elect the Board. This ten member Board elects the officers and determines the objectives of the organization. The Board election takes place at the September Meeting. We need candidates to serve on the Board, because it looks like there will be at least two vacancies. If you would be willing to serve in this capacity or if you want to nominate someone, please contact John Kriegshauser or Antanas Abraitis. Carpooling to Batavia - John Kriegshauser Meyer's Sawmill - Saturday July 17 - 9:30 A.M. |
CFDA June 8, 2004 - Membership Meeting Report
Chris Brandel & John Kriegshauser
| Meeting Notes from the June 8, 2004 CFDA General Meeting - Chris
Brandel
In attendance: Antanas V. Abraitis, Pete Radecki, Robert Frazier, Chris Brandel, Dave Waycie, Michael Obrecht, David Orth, Lee Weitzman, Julie Thompson, John Sirovatka, John Kriegshauser, Andrew Jackson, Jan Sopoci, Dan Tagliere, and a guest Dustin Petty. General Info / Announcements: - Merchandise mart has offered space to CFDA members at a reduced
rate for the Neocon Show. Anyone interested should contact Antanas for
details. Pieces are needed within the next couple of days. Discussion
took place about where and how to deliver pieces. Jan has the CFDA
banner for participating members to use for the Neocon show. News: - The July meeting of the CFDA will be held on Saturday July 17,
2004. This is the Saturday following the regular scheduled meeting date.
There will be no meeting held on Tuesday July 13, 2004. The location of
the meeting has been changed too. It will be in West Chicago, maps will
be sent out. This is due to an off site presentation by a lumber mill
individual. Anyone interested in providing carpool accommodations or participating
in a car pool should provide their information. As part of a tradition, Dan Tagliere was presented a steel memento recognizing his Vice President position and all of his contributions and support last year.. Most notably, with Dan's consulting experience he introduced the idea of committees encouraging member participation in various CFDA activities thus spreading the responsibilities and producing more results. Antanas and Chris Brandel made the presentation. Chris worked with a Bretford CNC operator to produce the inscription. Following the news was the scheduled program about the High Point Furniture Show. The High Point Experience - John Kriegshauser David Orth, Lee Weitzman, Chris David and Julie Thompson have made the trip many times. Chris, unfortunately, was taken ill at the last minute, and could not appear at the meeting, but the others were able to give a complete rundown of how the show works. The High Point Show's primary purpose is to connect manufacturers' showrooms to retail stores across the country, but our speakers went to sell designs to those manufacturers, which is a secondary function of the show. First of all, Lee and David stressed that designing for these manufacturers was very different than the custom design they normally do here in Chicago. These manufacturers seek designs that follow the market. The personal taste or creative impulse of the designer has no standing for them. For this reason the speakers found it necessary to visit as many showrooms as possible in order to learn about mass market taste. And also for this reason, many showrooms attempt to conceal their product lines by admitting only qualified customers! Once they identified firms that they felt might be receptive to their design ideas, they approached them directly, asking if they used freelance designers. This would usually result in their being referred up the line to someone to whom they could show their designs. They recommend carrying a small folder containing a few images of their work, which will serve as a teaser to secure a later appointment. At this later appointment they will present a more extensive portfolio. Lee and David both warned that this portfolio presentation could be ego bruising, because it could be abruptly interrupted by the appearance of customers, or the executive's swift judgment that your work was not to their firm's taste. Attending the show with a friend, they recommend, can buffer the impact of these encounters and help ward off discouragement. If the firm likes what you have shown them, they are likely to give you a 'design assignment.' They will typically request that you make a proposal for a piece they might need to fill out their line. If you can get back to them in the following weeks or months with a design idea(s), you do so only after they have signed a confidential disclosure agreement. This guarantees that they will not steal or broadcast the design ideas you are about to present to them. When you prepare this design, you will want to fashion the piece to the firm's particular manufacturing expertise. Lee showed images of vitrines made of curved glass he and Chris did for a firm specializing in curved glass. However, firms will vary on how intensively they want you to engineer the piece. Some will want you to stay with the design all the way to manufacture, while others will simply turn your drawing over to their engineers. In Lee and David's experience the manufacturers insisted on producing the prototypes themselves. However David cautioned that you will want to view the manufacturer's prototype prior to meeting with the firm's executives in order to get over the shock of seeing what they did to your idea! Either way, before you move into this more detailed level of design, you will want to have a contract defining how you will be paid. Established designers can sometimes claim a fee up front, but as a non-famous name designer you must wait to be paid a royalty on sales. If it is for high production furniture the royalty might be 1% or less of the wholesale price, but for production in more limited quantities the percentages might vary between 3% and 5%. David and Lee both get monthly royalty checks for designs they have in production, and both perceive the possibility of making a good living doing full time freelance design work. However, their primary businesses have distracted them from pursuing all the opportunities offered to them. The speakers advised that you avoid the ego trip of attaching your name to any designs that you might sell to manufacturers. They felt that having their names on manufactured lines, over which they have only limited control, would undermine their relatively exclusive, custom furniture businesses. Lee pointed out that Dakota Jackson tried to straddle this divide and got burned in the process. The industry is rapidly moving overseas, primarily to China and Southeast Asia, but North Carolina is still the headquarters of the North American industry and market. Las Vegas is mounting a rival home furnishings show, which, given the limited nightlife and entertainment opportunities in High Point, might be a welcome development. But for the present High Point is the place to go, and three days at the show can realistically be had for as little as $800 including air fare, food and accommodations. |
Green
Design and Shade Trees
John Kriegshauser
| Green Design and Shade Trees A Craftsman Thinks About Design The Green Buildings Council booth at the Merchandise Mart's Neocon furniture show handed out literature defining green buildings and green interiors. But when I reviewed their literature, I found only one, significant idea that immediately pertained to us as designer/makers of furniture. In the broader question of architecture, which is their principle focus, they make a distinction between the environmental cost embodied in the construction of a building and the cost of operating the building. The operational cost dwarfs the embodied cost in architecture, but not so in furniture. For furniture the embodied cost is the biggest wedge of the pie. The greenest furniture would, of course, be existing furniture that continues in service, but what would the second greenest furniture be? I would nominate making furniture from old shade trees. At the end of their useful lives shade trees must be removed to protect the surrounding property, but with only a small additional expenditure of energy these trees can be converted into durable, functional furniture. These urban trees during their lives soak up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, very desirable qualities in any city. They provide shade, which reduces the air conditioning load, yet they themselves consume no power save sunlight. And let's not overlook the visual beauty that they add to our neighborhoods. Salvaged materials, which have negligible environmental cost, cannot boast any of these positive aspects. Conventionally harvested lumber and, of course, metals and plastics cannot come close to being so environmentally benign. However, lumber from urban shade trees cannot be directly substituted for conventional lumber. A shade tree will produce little long, straight grained lumber, because it will have a shorter shaft and more knots. A shade tree's growth is apt to be faster with larger annular growth rings, which make it less stable. Add that to the uneven quality of air and solar kiln drying, and designs must be modified to make greater allowances for wood movement. Also, because of its spreading limbs the shade tree is likely to have some complex tensions built into its cellular structure. And, of course, there's the issue of nails! Shade tree lumber does have its upside, though. This lumber is custom cut, so, if your design calls for quartered or rift grain, you need only ask for it. The big issue of color and grain compatibility that arises when lumber from various trees is mixed diminishes to insignificance when lumber comes from a single tree. On the other hand, lumber from an individual shade tree is likely to be so distinctive that it can be turned into a design virtue. Look at the work of George Nakashima! In fact, shade trees can even have a distinctive history, because of their long association with people,. One of the most wonderful dining tables I have ever seen was crudely made from an ancient elm tree that grew on a ranch in Oklahoma. Generations later the family had it in their home in Kansas City, and it was obvious that for generations to come, even as fashions changed, it would never be discarded.
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