Wood Stories
Summer 2026
Sorry I’m late!
It’s been a year since I posted a newsletter, and for that I apologize.
Actually, I did post a winter account of my 2 months traveling through Europe, but it’s long, self-indulgent, and has nothing to do with furniture. So, I didn’t sent it out to you. If you’re interested, you can read it here.
This issue includes a story of one of my favorite collaborative experiences, and another about a fine art course I took at my local college. Also, I just finished a bench that I'm quite proud of. I tagged that at the bottom of this page.
The Cornett Library
Bridget Cornett is a neurologist at Michigan Medicine, but before that, she was an English major at university. She has an office in her home, but wanted a quiet space where she could escape to read, write, and think about non-work stuff. This was the space where she wanted her library:
Ah! Bookshelves! Years ago, I had a brilliant idea for a library that a previous client rejected. Here was my opportunity to build it. So I made a model and submitted it to her. She didn’t like it. Well, it was a good start, but she wanted to push the design a bit.
Back to the drawing board. Actually, it was back to the drawing board five times. Finally, I gave her my latest sketch and a sharpie and said, “show me what you have in mind.” Bridget drew long shelves that extended beyond the vertical bits and overlapped each other. It was brilliant.
A trip to my sawyer, John Haling, and we picked up out stack of cherry slabs and some box elder - two contrasting woods that will age beautifully together. This was a joy to build.
The original idea. Not what she wanted, but in the right direction.
This has been a year of bookshelves. Here are 2 smaller sets that I built recently:
Art Class
With Bridget pushing her library design beyond what I thought she might want, I wondered if my work was getting too conservative, if my pieces were relying on my tried-and-true solutions from the past. Perhaps I needed to push myself a bit. What might I come up with if my goal wasn’t so customer-focused, or indeed, furniture-focused? So, I signed up for an art course at Eastern Michigan University – just 10 blocks from my house – and immersed myself in the company (and criticism) of young, serious artists and their professors.
My first piece was a chair, but I set a rule for myself: solicit criticism from the students and teachers, and then don’t follow that criticism verbatim, but decide what the kernel of that criticism was, and adapt the piece somehow in the spirit of it. This is where it ended up:
Marchair
The second piece was inspired by a chimney I discovered from the rooftop of my apartment in Venice while attending the Biennale. I love the quirky shape of the chimney contrasted by the geometry and colors of the background.
Stones of Venice. Volume the Fourth.
Chimneys and Rooftops
Kissner Bench
A few years ago, my cousin, Steve, gave me a couple of beautiful elm slabs from an estate in Pennsylvania. This piece has been taking up space in my studio waiting for the perfect project. I think I found it.
Dana is an internationally renown pulmonologist with and expertise in tuberculosis. She has recently had her home completely remodeled. For her entryway, she wanted a bench for taking-off and putting-on shoes. Here's the result.
I recently visited the Wharton Esherick Museum (for the third time) outside Malvern, PA. Esherick was making custom fine art furniture in the 1930s, '40s & '50s - decades before the craft furniture movement began. The edges of many of his pieces have a wide, shallow bevel that I find inspiring. (And, I discovered, extremely labor-intensive. No machine can make this shape.)
By the way, if you look carefully, you might notice that the seat itself is somewhat lung-shaped.
