Woodworker: Mario Rodriguez
Several times a year at Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, Rodriguez teaches a Master Class in which students attend classes one weekend a month. Because students take their project home between classes to work on it, Rodriguez picks a piece for the class that is relatively portable. But he also wants the project to stretch the students’ skill set-and sometimes his own, too. This dresser mirror in mahogany and curly maple, based on one by the Federal-era masters John and Thomas Seymour, was just the ticket. Rodriguez made the sand-shaded lunette banding above the drawers in yellowheart with ebony stringing, using a technique he learned from fellow period furniture maker Freddy Roman. The drawer sides are pine and the brass hardware is from Whitechapel. The piece is 10 in. deep by 23 in. wide by 14 in. tall.