Big news, folks... this is the last call to order a copy of Issue Two! We now only have a couple hundred left in stock, and once they’re gone, they’re gone for good. We get emails all the time from folks begging to order a copy of Issue One even though they know it’s now out of stock. We expect the same will happen with Issue Two. So if you’ve delayed to pick up a copy, we recommend doing so now right here: https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/collections/magazine/products/issue-two It’s a great issue with a ton of amazing authors including George and David Sawyer, George Walker, Chris Schwarz, Don Williams, Timothy Garland, Zachary Dillinger, Skip Brack, and Peter Follansbee. It’s also the issue...
Autumn in Maine is a magical time. There’s frost in the morning air, the leaves are growing more fiery by the day, and we’re hauling firewood into the house with increasing regularity – all reminders of the changeability of the season and the fast approach of winter. It’ll be here before you know it. Every October, we head up to Leonard’s Mills in Bradley for their Living History Days – me and my family as visitors, Joshua and his family as historic interpreters. It’s a great time to wander around the working sash mill, weave at one of the old looms, eat some beanhole beans and reflector-oven biscuits, and take a wagon ride. We usually run into old friends there, and...
I rarely post anything about my personal life on the internet, but for those of you who are interested to learn about my background and life (in more depth than I’ve ever previously disclosed), Lost Art Press has just published a “Meet the Author” blog post about me on their site. Kara is an excellent interviewer and writer, and it was an honor to have her write this up.
Honestly, it feels weird making this much of my life public knowledge, but there it is. I hope you find something in my story that resonates with you.
You can read the whole thing here: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2019/09/26/meet-the-author-joshua-klein/
-Joshua
The packing party for Issue Seven is this coming Friday and Saturday. (Subscribe here.) That means tomorrow is the last day to subscribe if you want to get a wrapped copy of Issue Seven!
Also, we just discovered that we can fit a few more people into the party. So, if you want to join us at the 2-day wrapping party in Sedgwick, Maine, send us an email at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com right away!
Issue Seven is heading out soon!
I’ve never had any ambitions to grow this business beyond taking care of the needs of my family, but it turned out to be much more than I could handle alone. So I hired my good friend Mike to help out part time… and then (quickly) full time. After a couple years, when we realized that Mike was spending a ton of his time on customer service, I hired my sister-in-law, Elise, to manage that aspect for us. Besides the biannual editing help we get from Megan Fitzpatrick and Jim McConnell, every single aspect of running this independent magazine from storage to shipping to editing to writing to photography to design to distributor correspondence to taxes, etc… has been Mike...
It has been two days since our 35 dear new friends left, and I can still hardly believe it happened. If it wasn’t for the standing frame and the scattered hewing stations with their empty bunks and mounds of woodchips, I’d be tempted to believe this was all a dream. But as I’ve thought about it further, I’ve realized that this was a dream – it was exactly the kind of convivial hand-tool project that I’ve longed to host. Over the years, I’ve had different ideas of ways to bring people into our space to work together on something beautiful. I see our workshops as part of that vision, but I’ve known there was something even bigger out there – I...
Between Friday, August 23rd to Saturday, August 31st, a team of 35 professional timber framers from France, England, Slovenia, Estonia, and the US who specialize in historic hand-tool methods will be constructing a 16’ x 26’ timber frame outbuilding/blacksmith shop adjacent to the Mortise & Tenon Magazine woodshop in Sedgwick, Maine. This team, Charpentiers sans Frontiers (Carpenters Without Borders), is led by François Calame, ethnologist in the Ministry of Culture in Normandy. Usually they are restoring medieval masterpieces like Château d'Harcourt, Château de Gaillon, or a 1491 barn in Alcou. CSF does at least one of these events per year and M&T is grateful to be chosen for their 2019 project. François and his crew are supportive of the efforts of M&T to promote human-powered, pre-industrial craftsmanship...
As we’ve been announcing the Issue Seven table of contents over the past two weeks, Joshua and I have been juggling the many logistical details that lead up to each issue’s release – both from an editorial standpoint (chasing down image permissions, formatting endnotes) and from a practical one (how many shipping labels do we need again?). And, of course, this means it’s time to announce the next M&T Packing Party! With every issue so far, we’ve had friends come in from far and wide to help us wrap each magazine in brown paper, affix a wax-sealed trade card, and place it in a rigid mailer with a few pine plane shavings. We’ve loved adding this special touch, and the fun...
This is last installment in a blog series which reveals the table of contents of upcoming Issue Seven. Please note that the subscription window which includes Issue Seven is open now until Sep 24th. A NEW CHANGE: WRAPPING FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS ONLY From now on, we will be wrapping magazines (brown paper, wax-sealed trade card, and pine shaving) for subscriptions only, not individually purchased copies of the magazine. This is an effort to simplify things a bit around here. Individual copies can be ordered after the subscriptions ship on September 30th, but if you really do love that wax seal, brown paper, and pine wood shaving, be sure to get a subscription now. If you aren’t sure about your subscription status, you can reach out to us at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com....
“What do a prehistoric flint spearpoint, a Windsor chair, and a carved wooden spoon have in common?” begins author George Walker. What follows is a fascinating, winsome defense of what Walker calls the “Axioms of Craft,”: guiding principles that have been universally accepted by artisans from time immemorial. Tracing the thread back 12,000 years to the Clovis culture, following it through Ancient Greece and into the Victorian Era, Walker makes his case for the immutability of these three guiding principles: “Firmitas, strength and durability; comoditas, function; and venustas, beauty.” All craftsmanship had to contain these values in complementary measure, he argues, or it was considered lacking and mediocre.
