Elements of the Shaker Style
Chris Becksvoort reveals authentic details that will help you stay true to the form
Synopsis: When Christian Becksvoort discovered Shaker furniture in college, he immediately fell for its simplicity and plainness, for its form-follows-function approach. A few years later, he took a job reconstructing furniture for the Shakers. Today he makes much of his furniture in the Shaker style. In this richly illustrated article, he describes Shaker-style crown moldings, door frames and panels, drawers, knobs, tabletop edges, and legs and turnings.
Woodworking masters Jere Osgood, Sam Maloof and George Nakashima each evolved a style and explored it to its ultimate conclusion, and to hell with what was in vogue. The Shakers did the same thing, continually refining their idiom until they approached perfection, without regard to the latest trend. They developed a style of furniture that blends well and fits comfortable in any type of house. The Shakers went out of their way to eschew fashion: The result is timelessness.
I grew up in a house full of Danish modern furniture, which was, it turns out, heavily influenced by Shaker designs. Like the Danish furniture makers, I fell under the sway of Shaker furniture the moment I discovered it–in my case, during a slide lecture in an architecture appreciation course I took in college. The simplicity and utility of the furniture I saw in the slides stunned me. In the late 1970s, I began restoring Shaker furniture, and much of my own work has been in the Shaker vein ever since. I very seldom reproduce slavishly, but you can look at my work and without batting an eye see its derivation is Shaker.
To make a Shaker-looking piece, adopt a Shaker attitude: Keep it simple in design and materials, make it functional and incorporate authentic details. The details shown on these pages were commonly used by the Shakers until about 1860, after which their furniture began to show the worldly influence of the Victorian style.
From Fine Woodworking #131
For the full article, download the PDF below:
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