Like most makers of custom furniture, I buy and save interesting boards when I find them. Recently, several of them came together into a large storage and display cabinet for a friend who sells relatively small but very expensive and very good art objects. The idea was to trade a piece of his art for one of mine. That set the tone to some extent, but this thing has evolved into what may be the best piece I have ever put together. The carcass is standard construction, but probably more stout than needed. The top is a piece of English burl oak about 3/4 x 30 x 100 inches. One edge was straight sawn. The other retained a +/- 3″ wane that waved in and out in a very pleasing pattern. For the front I have glued together (vertically) an awful lot of spalted white oak (never seen that before) that was really interesting but had gone a bit too far and gotten pretty soft in a few places, but that justifying a robust door front that would do fine when eventually attached to three rigid, slide out drawer units, each about 28″ high and 30″ wide. The magic happened when I succeeded in getting the profile of the fronts, all 90 some inches of them, to follow very closely the profile of the wane edge of the top. When the fronts were attached to the drawer units, aligned, tweaked, lowered a bit below the top, and adjusted for minimum horizontal separation; well, sometimes I amaze even myself. NOW THE QUESTION. If I ever make a piece worthy of a juried competition, this would be it. But I have no idea how to go there. Can someone give me a quick lesson or refer me to one? I was afraid that if I sent a picture to the FWW on-line Gallery for comments and opinions, that might somehow constitute a “prior publication” and violate some rule for future display. I’d sure like to see it in the print version of the Gallery or, best of all, in the next version of the recent “Contemporary Projects” or the old “Studio Furniture” series. Since my production capacity is very small, and I’m independently wealthy anyway (we wish), I’m not in this for the money but, if published, I’d be real proud to display an award on my coffee table. It’s not quite finished yet so I’m in no hurry. Anyway, my kid needs me to saw some 2 x 4’s for a basement remodel. Probably hang a few pieces of drywall as well. Oh well.
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Replies
Can't help you with your question, but have to comment that I think we do our best work when we have something to prove. In your case, you value the art your friend sells and want to make a piece of equal value. Also, taking your time and making it the way it should be as opposed to rushing it for the sake of getting the job done makes for a better workpiece. For this reason, I would rather have multiple projects on the go. That way, I am never forcing myself to proceed for the sake of proceeding.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Nice website Chris, and good looking stuff. Thanks, I'll read the words later.
>taking your time . . . as opposed to rushing . . . have multiple projects on the go. . . never forcing myself to proceed for the sake of proceeding.Well you would just L O V E my mess . . . er . . . um . . . shop !Dining table, Klausz bench, dovetailed tool cabinets from walnut and camphor wood, wooden planes; all in a tornado in a tea pot.Queenmasteroftheuniverse says to tell you there are people you simply should not encourage in this manner.: )roc
Edited 1/9/2009 11:54 pm by roc
T&A , post a picture we will keep it under wraps . Sounds interesting.
Tom
Just email a good image to FWW for the readers gallery. Probably needs to be a professional picture though. They will let you know if they want it, if not send it to the other mags for publication. Getting into the 'Contemporary Furniture' book or design books takes more effort and better pictures.
There is another of those design books coming out later this year from Schiffer Publishing called 'Studio Furniture from Today's Leading Artists', I know a couple people that are in it and it should be a good read.
Bob
Who has experience in getting into the more prestigious stuff. Not that I'm necessary that good, but why not. I can get the good photography easy enough.
Getting into the more prominent design books is about knowing when they are looking for image submissions as many of the books seem to appear without any prior notice. FWW is good about notifying the public through the magazine when a design book is coming out, not so good with their other woodworking books though. Publishers like Lark Books post on their website when new books are looking for submissions and they are by far the best at this process; I wish all publishers would take a page from the Lark book on this one. They recently closed submissions on their 500 Tables book coming out later this year for example.
As for the magazines, FWW is very tempermental about you submitting photos to them and other magazines at the same time, they prefer to be the first or only one that shows a picture of a piece so if you send to them hold off on sending to the other mags until you hear back from FWW. Some of the magazines will only notify you once the image is already on its way to the printer when it's to late to pull it if someone else is also showing the same photo.
Another way to get your work covered in the magazines is to enter furniture shows, preferably the larger ones and win some awards. The best pieces regularly get coverage in the magazines. The big Texas furniture show, the Design In Wood show, Hawaii's big show, they all get covered every year in multiple magazines.
In reality it takes quite a bit of time to routinely submit pieces to shows and publications, time spent looking for shows, mags and books to submit to, time preparing packages of photos and info to send out, time getting professional photos of your work, etc. If you only want to see your stuff in the magazine once in a while it's not so bad but if you are looking for regular coverage to generate buzz it is a different story, especially once you move out of the woodworking magazines into the design or architecture type mags as they get lots more submissions and take longer to get into. Woodworking magazines are very easy to get into by comparison. Good luck.
Bob
Good stuff. Thanks, Bob.
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