“It is important to stress that few period cabinetmakers made a living exclusively by building furniture. Especially in rural settings, artisans had diverse sources of income. Warren Roberts has said, “craftsmen were usually part-time farmers who had some land on which they grew crops and raised animals, devoting time to their own farm when they could. Hence it is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between the farmer and the specialized craftsman.” If the Arts and Crafts legend of the rural craftsmen working in isolation, doing everything by hand and by the sweat of their brow is true anywhere, it is in Fisher. In rural towns such as Blue Hill, the craft tradition gave the maker more freedom...
Woodworker and podcaster, Ray Deftereos, of the podcast “Hand Tool Book Review” has just released a thoughtful and thorough review of my first book Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847). He clearly took a lot of time assessing the book and distilling its contents for listeners, because I have never heard a more complete and concise description of the book anywhere else. Ray nailed it. I appreciated hearing his perspective on the practical benefits of this book which fits only by technicality on the dry and dusty “historical monograph” shelf. He talked about how he was delighted to see something different in such a work – something more personal. This was exactly my intention with the...
This new episode of our podcast is focused on Joshua’s new book about the furniture making of Jonathan Fisher, a Maine furniture maker working during first quarter of the 19th century. Joshua spent five years writing a book looking closely at the surviving furniture, tools, and journal entries of this rural maker to understand what it was like to work in the 18th and early-19th centuries. Having just come from the Colonial Williamsburg conference to share this research, he and Mike discuss the writing of this book and several of the unique take-home lessons for those of us in the 21st century.
Items Mentioned in this Episode:
Colonial Williamsburg
The Book: “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768–1847)”
When I got home from work yesterday, the long-anticipated shipment of the Jonathan Fisher workshop posters was sitting on my front porch! This poster features the incredible illustration that was commissioned for my new book, Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847). The image is a recreation of a typical Jonathan Fisher workshop scene, in which the parson is hard at work making furniture for his and his community’s homes. Everything from the barn he worked in, the tools hanging on the walls, the partially assembled desk in the foreground, to the sheep inside and pigs outside are all based on surviving artifacts or documentation. Little in this illustration is conjecture.
My greatest mentor died almost 200 years ago. When I began researching in 2013 what is very likely the most complete surviving record of a pre-industrial American furniture maker, I had no idea how profoundly it would affect my own life’s work.
The book I’ve been working on for the past five years, researching the work of Jonathan Fisher is now at the printer! Thanks to the support of my publisher, Lost Art Press, the wise advice of colleagues, and generous research grants from the Early American Industries Association and the Society of American Period Furniture Makers, this labor of love has, at long last, become a reality. The publisher, Lost Art Press, has now opened pre-publication ordering for this book which will arrive mid-August. You can order your copy here. I began writing a blurb about the book but decided I couldn’t improve on what Chris Schwarz (my editor) wrote: “Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) was the first settled minister of the frontier...
After shipping out orders yesterday morning, Mike and I spent time reviewing the outline and logistics for a video shoot next week. We’ve been discussing this second video in the Apprenticeship series since we released the Foundations video last year. The idea behind this series is to bring you into the shop to learn the skills every pre-industrial cabinetmaker learned. It is designed to teach you the skills and mindset to approach any project without elaborate full-scale plans or expensive (and dangerous) machines. Rather than show you how to build one specific special piece, we decided to approach this series the way you’d learn in a real apprenticeship setting: you learn the form. This teaching model is perfect for...
Inspired by Chris Schwarz’s article in Issue Two “Decoding the Roman Workbench”, Mike and I have decided to build our own Roman (i.e. staked) benches. I’ve been doubly curious about this form because Jonathan Fisher’s bench of this type survives in his house (now a museum) and I’ve really wanted to get some time working at one before finishing off my book on him this winter. The week of February 20th, Mike and I will each be building a bench. I will be basing mine largely on Fisher’s bench, which is a 12.5” wide by 7’ long rough-sawn board with four riven and hatcheted legs. His is a little less than 2” thick but the plank I have set...
As we’re only days away from the packing party to ship out Issue Two, I can’t help but reflect on the year (11 months actually) since Issue One was released. 2016 has been a wild ride for me. Before M&T launched, I spent my work week alone in my studio regluing chairs and refinishing dining tables. I ran a little blog documenting some of it but, for the most part, I was pretty much in my own little world. This leap-in-the-dark magazine idea was simply the culmination of my many thoughts and observations working on period furniture. I never knew if it would resonate with anyone else. Mortise & Tenon has completely flipped my life upside down. The interest...
One of the most exciting aspects of working with old handmade objects is deciphering the stories told by tool marks. An undercut here, some traversing there - these can give great insight into the thought process of the craftsman who first handled these pieces of wood centuries ago. But the language written by old bits of tool steel can be mysterious and inexact - our familiar rules of grammar don't apply. How do you ask, "Did you use a template?" in Old Dovetail? Or, "What's with that drawer bottom?" in Rough Hatchet? It can be a great exercise in forensics trying to solve these very, very cold cases. Occasionally, a piece will contain a much clearer form of communication from...
