The Artisan Furnituremaker: A Creative Survival Guide

By Darrell Peart

Learn how to couple inspired design with flawless execution to create your own striking, original furniture.

In his latest book, The Artisan Furnituremaker, long-time furnituremaker Darrell Peart—author of Greene & Greene: Design Elements for the Workshop and In the Greene & Greene Style—brings all his experience to bear in providing a masterclass on the three fundamental requirements for success in the field of custom furniture design: creativity, design, and workmanship. The book offers a detailed examination of the design and production methods of the Greene brothers, legendary furnituremakers and architects of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and illuminates how the brothers achieved such brilliance in their designs, and how they collaborated so successfully with the craftsmen who brought their designs to life.

The Artisan Furnituremaker goes on to show how you can combine all three elements— creativity, design, and workmanship—in your own workshop and produce high quality, distinctively original pieces of your own. Peart covers how creativity is essential for fulfilling the desires of your customers, and how superb design translates creativity into an implementable schematic.

Peart goes on to show that in order to create art that is infused with emotion and original in nature, one has to have intuition and inspiration. The book demonstrates this by exploring methods the author has used during his long career to forge a very successful custom furniture business that has produced art of lasting value.

Peart draws upon William Varnum’s book, Industrial Arts Design. However, he stresses that this is just a starting point, and that equations and rules cannot create original art. For that, intellect, intuition, and inspiration are required, all of which are discussed in relation to art and craft. From there Peart moves on to demonstrate how you can enhance your own design and craftsmanship abilities by a process he calls “Design DNA.” Design DNA is a framework for asking the right questions, a procedure he examines at length.

The Artisan Furnituremaker is the ultimate resource for creators looking to take their craft to the next level and produce striking, original work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linden Publishing
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781610354059

Darrell Peart

Darrell Peart has an extensive background in both commercial and custom furniture making. After starting his woodworking career in high-end furniture shops, he discovered the American Arts and Crafts Movement in 1989, and was coon captivated by the works of Charles and Henry Greene. Darrell resides in Renton, Washington. His work may be viewed at his website: www.furnituremaker.com.

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Introduction

My start in woodworking was by happenchance. In the summer of 1973, I had recently quit my first (sort of) woodworking job, making laminated beams. I was bored and wanted something to invigorate me.

Many of my free-spirited friends were engaged in adventures. Mike had driven from Seattle to New York, playing his guitar and singing for traveling expenses, while Curt was hitchhiking—mostly up and down the West Coast. In my mind they were living life to its fullest, having one adventure after another.

Many of my not-so-free-spirited friends (and I) had jobs that provided some of the niceties of life. There was no denying the comfort those niceties could provide. At the end of that line lured contentment. While contentment has its benefits, I did not want to be lulled into it. That was for old people (says the now-old guy who still feels the same way). Something was surely missing. I didn’t know if Mike or Curt had the answers, but at least they were out there searching. I wanted to join them!

So, I convinced Curt to take a hitchhiking trip with me from my home in Auburn, Washington to San Francisco. To make it an adventure, we would leave my Volkswagen Bug at home and take only twenty dollars with us. This puzzled Curt. I had a good-running car and money in the bank. Hitchhiking was not his preferred method of travel—he did it because it fit into his budget (more like lack of budget).

Twenty dollars—even in 1973 dollars—did not go far. A week and a half after we set out, we found ourselves stranded at a freeway entrance just north of San Francisco. We were out of money and downwind from a restaurant. For several hours no one picked us up. Eventually a young woman pulled over. She was headed back home to Seattle, just as we were. Between us, we had money for gas, but no more. So, we drove straight through, stopping only to fill the tank and empty our bladders.

It was an exceptionally long drive, and we had hours to fill with conversation. The driver told us she made a living making things and selling them at the Pike Place Market. I don’t remember what exactly she made, but I sort of recall it involved sewing. She was passionate about it—and her enthusiasm was infectious! Her excitement was not just about her specific craft—it was a way of life that revolved around creativity and making things. There was not a thing yet defined as the maker movement—that was still decades away. I believe the term used back then was those damn hippies.

I learned three things on that trip. First, I was done with hitchhiking (being stranded eight hundred miles from home had put a damper on what I had previously viewed as a romantic adventure). Second, there are people of good faith in the world willing to help each other out. Third, and most importantly, I wanted to make and sell things.

I didn’t suddenly decide to become a woodworker—instead I desired to be simply creative above all else. My previous job making laminated beams had introduced me to using power tools, and I was comfortable with a router in my hands. Because of this, woodworking seemed the obvious choice to sooth my creative fever. The word career didn’t come to mind—somehow career seemed to fall short.

In a broader sense, I was seeking the life of an artisan furnituremaker—an artisan being someone who has mastered their craft, makes a living at it, and as such contributes in a meaningful way to society. My goal has never been to find contentment. I have long since lost the urge to hitchhike, but it still feels good to shake things up now and then. Taking on a project that pushes my limits still gets me excited!

I hope some of what I have shared in this book sets you on the path to find your happiness as an artisan, whether that be as a maker of furniture or of whatever craft excites you.

The Artisan’s Place in Today’s World

Defining an Artisan

My use of the term artisan requires an explanation. The common understanding of the word is a highly competent craftsperson—that is, someone who is skilled at making things, usually by hand. (The term by hand has a lot of baggage and can be at times disingenuous, as I will discuss later.) This understanding of artisan precludes the attribute of artist. But I want to take a step back to the root word of artisan—which is art. My definition of artisan is someone who is not only highly skilled at making, but also at designing.

Today’s artisans do not limit themselves to simply replicating things. Many have a strong desire to be truly creative. The 1970s model that I knew, in which there was a distinct separation between designer and maker, is no longer universally accepted. Today an increasing number of people yearn for a livelihood that serves as an outlet for their creativity and self-expression. For these artisans, it’s no longer sufficient to just design or to just make. It is not one or the other; it is one and the same. It is hands on, and a very personal approach. It is in essence the life of an artist that makes things. Twentieth-century furnituremakers Sam Maloof and James Krenov both worked in this vein.

Being an artisan of any kind is a commitment fueled by passion. It is a lifestyle. But it is a lifestyle that is often in opposition to the tide. The lure of a good living beckons from the corporate world, while going it on your own is fraught with uncertainty. The question becomes, does a solitary maker of things have a viable path forward that contributes in a positive way yet offers fulfillment and a livable income?

The Maker Movement

The growing maker movement indicates there is interest from both people who want to make things and people who want to buy those things. It is an incredibly diverse group. Some makers are producing stuff of the highest order—imaginative works in which the aesthetics and quality go hand in hand. While at the same time others are fabricating tasteless, poorly made objects. Let’s hope some of these latter makers are going through a process of learning and improving. My discussion here concerns the former, or at least those who strive to emulate the former.

The current maker movement has much in common with the Arts and Crafts movement from the early twentieth century. Back then, artisans were motivated by the steady march of industrialization and the advancement of impersonal products. In our present day, makers are reacting to the virtual world. They yearn for something real—something they can put their hands on and feel, something that is tactile—as opposed to the computer-generated world that exists behind a curtain of zeros and ones.

Many of my woodworking students make a comfortable livelihood in technology. They often tell me that making serves as a therapy of sorts. While they enjoy their careers (the tech world is full of opportunities to be creative), woodworking provides a balance. They find pleasure in using their hands to create something in the real world.

While technology and industry can produce stuff of superior quality, they frequently produce things that are inferior and disposable. The trend is to let quality take a back seat to profits. This is prevalent in many industrially made products—not just furniture. Corporations buy up companies that had once possessed pride in their products and then shift the focus to profits. Routers, for instance, that once were solidly built and reliable now have cheap plastic parts that fall off (a long-standing peeve of mine!).

A reliable, honest product is not always at the forefront of business these days. But many in the maker movement seek a balance between profits and integrity. To them, profits are essential, but pride in a job well done has value as well.

Even when technology lives up to its promise and produces things of quality, there is something missing in these things—the small random errors and variations that are akin to the human hand at work. Those small imperfections are a connection between the user and another human being, whether the maker created the object last week or a thousand years ago. I dread the day when technology attempts to mimic the human hand at work by programming irregularities—or, worse, when artificial intelligence endeavors to produce original art by reducing human emotions to an equation. I hope that the need to have things in our lives that connect us to other human beings never dies.

In my work the human hand can be seen in the softening of an edge or corner, or the silk-like pillowing of an end-grained surface. Or it’s the little pull back of the inside corners (done with a rasp) of a finger joint (see image 1-1). Sometimes it’s the final hand shaping of a hand pull or my strap detail.

Image 1-1: Finger joint from my Aurora Pedestal Desk. Imagine the pull back at the inside corner of the joint as a budding finger awaiting to mature and take form. PHOTO BY DARRELL PEART

Handmade (or Not)

There has been a focus over the past several years on the use of hand tools alone—that is, on working in a shop where the only things that plug into the wall are the lights. I admire this push to revive old, almost forgotten skills. I hope that that knowledge never fades away. But my purpose in this book is to lay out a path for the contemporary artisan furnituremaker—one who makes a sustainable living in our current, ever-changing environment. And though there are a rarefied few who can make it by using only hand tools, for most of you that is not a viable path.

Given the reality of today, I would think most would agree the label handmade should be reserved for those who use entirely hand tools from raw lumber forward. But that is most often not the case. Work that involves jointers, planers, bandsaws, and table saws are often proclaimed to be handmade as well. The terms handmade and Old World craftsmanship get a lot of usage when selling furniture. This is especially so with online craft markets. While I have no intention of degrading handmade (quite the opposite; I respect those who truly do things by hand), I do feel it is a term that has been used too freely and to some extent overly romanticized.

In addition, the term handmade has been abused through clever advertising, rendering it of little practical use. Handmade conjures up an image of a furnituremaker at their bench with their hand plane and a pile of shavings. I am sure most of you have seen such ads with softly lit, oversaturated photos of an old guy with a beard—who sometimes appears to be ill at ease with a tool in his hand. The point is, the term handmade has been abused.

This abuse is not a new thing. Back in the 1980s, I worked for Harry Lunstead Designs (HLD). Harry was a well-known designer of office furniture in Seattle. I labored in the custom department, making, for the most part, high-end conference tables. While Harry was alive, the furniture was built with integrity and great sensitivity to aesthetics. I was disciplined that doing it right was the highest priority. HLD is where I first learned to use grain with forethought and sensitivity. Thank you, Harry!

While Harry’s furniture had integrity, I would not classify it as handmade. Sure, our department made some details by hand, but we employed a lot of industrial machinery as well. At its peak, HLD employed more than two hundred people on the floor. We imported the latest, greatest, biggest manufacturing equipment from Europe. Most of the workers were engaged in high production but could not be called furnituremakers; they were in fact simply machine operators.

HLD salespeople had a different take. They would regularly give potential clients the tour of the shop, and I would often listen in as I worked. I think there must have been a reward for the salesperson who could