This week, Mike and I are in the final stages of producing a new video course designed to be a heads-first dive into the guts of genuine antique chairs, chests, desks, tables, etc. We’re calling it The Makers’ Marks: An In-depth Study of Handmade Furniture.
We’ve been looking for ways to make more use of our online course format, seeing as the Apprenticeship Program has been such a smashing success. It turns out that the power of video to bring you right up close to the action is just the ticket for conveying certain things about the craft. And showing genuine pre-industrial workmanship is definitely one of those things.
In this upcoming course (scheduled for release at the end of the week) I take a concentrated look at over a dozen pieces of period furniture (read: many hours) in order to study the work of the masters of our craft. I walk through the construction and workmanship of each piece in order make authentic handwork (and some of the logic behind it) plain as day. I’m pretty sure any woodworker who has watched Antiques Roadshow has wished that the cameras would get closer and show more of the undersides.
This is because furniture makers are known to be gawkers. We’re the ones on our hands and knees, neck craned under the table leaves trying to decipher the logic of a curious layout line. Our spouses cringe in embarrassment, but in our defense, it cannot be helped. It is a sickness.
If you share this same sickness, The Makers’ Marks is just the thing you don’t need.
Stay tuned for more details. We’ve been releasing snippets of the lessons on the Dispatch and there will be more details to come real soon… You’ve got to see it to believe it.
-Joshua