woodwork feature

W O O D W O R K 18 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8

Imagine that you’re several years intoyour woodworking career and youhave a brilliant idea to turn a pieceof wood that’s 77" in diameter by 14"thick, over 450 board feet of lumber.

Then imagine actually doing it! And doingit over thirty years ago, when variable speedwoodturning lathes were still in theirinfancy and were hardly sufficient for aturning of this magnitude. But that’s whatStephen Hogbin did, and while his accom-plishment doesn’t begin to define him, thisfeat of engineering and personal braveryresonates with me. At about the same time,I was turning a piece 36" in diameter and 1-1/2" thick, feeling that I was taking my lifeinto my hands. What Hogbin turned wasnearly twenty times the mass of my effort.He went on to cut it up into pieces and cre-ated two chairs, a table, and a shelf, a con-cept that he had worked out in miniature asa maquette before taking on the full-sizedversion. This work served as the centerpiecefor an exhibition in Toronto in 1974 thatgained Stephen Hogbin international recog-nition. It announced his arrival on thewoodturning scene and on the furniturescene, in one fell swoop.

Stephen Hogbin was born in England in1942. In the late 1950s he studied wood-working at Rycotewood College and laterstudied industrial design at the Royal Col-lege of Art. One of his professors there wasDavid Pye, an important maker whose dis-tinctive work features intricately carveddetails accomplished with a carving

machine that he invented. He also wrote theseminal books, The Nature and Art of Work-manship and The Nature and Aesthetics ofDesign. Hogbin was impressed with Pye’sdesign insight, that “he engaged the wholemind in looking at workmanship, objects,and quality.” In 1968 Hogbin moved toCanada to teach at Sheridan College Schoolof Design, where he taught full-time until1972. He decided to stay in Canada, livingfirst in Toronto and later settling in LakeCharles, about three hours north. He livesand works there still.

Until 1970, woodturning was nearlyexclusively used in the making of utilitar-ian objects. Bob Stocksdale’s vessels, orbowl forms, were the first to elevate the sta-tus of this work through his high level ofcraftsmanship, careful wood selection, andattention to detail. But in the early 1970s,Stephen Hogbin was developing vessels ina different way.

He turned a bowl that had some honey-combing in the middle of it. He saw severaloptions: throw it away, fill in the blemish,or remove the defect. He decided on the lastand cut the bowl in half. He looked at thecross-section and considered different waysof recombining the halves, beginning aseries of explorations into cut and reassem-bled pieces that he called “fragmentals.”“Initially I was attracted by the conceptualpossibilities of the process and not too wor-ried about function or beauty. I wasrebelling against my industrial design back-ground, maybe even the Establishment.

Clearly, the impulse of the times was todeconstruct established ideas.”

Cross-sections are interesting phenom-ena. If you are designing an object inadvance of turning it, you need to draw thecross-section, but you usually never see it inthe finished work. In most vessels, the lineof the interior and exterior are parallel,maintaining uniform wall thickness. Hog-bin intentionally made the interior and exte-rior contours different in order to creategraphic effects with the exposed cross-sec-tions of the finished pieces. “Space for aBowl,” made in 1972, is a good example. Abowl form was turned with a large uvula-likeprotuberance emerging in the middle of theinside. The bowl was cut in half and gluedalong what had been the top rim of the bowl,creating a form similar to a half walnut. Aseries of pieces exploring these ideas wasfeatured in a solo exhibition at a gallery inToronto in 1972, but the show came andwent without much notice; as Hogbin said,“…like a tree falling in the forest.”

Hogbin next turned his attention to thequestion of scale. “The size of the turningswas being determined by the size of a board,which was limiting, and gluing two boardstogether always looked to me like I couldn’tfind a board big enough. But many boardsmight be different. Then the questions: howbig might a piece be? What is the best andproper scale to be working at? Some of myforms would work as a button and also, ifscaled up, become big enough to be a largesculpture on a wall.


BY MARK SFIRRI

HOGBINREFLECTING

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“At this point I don’t recall exactly how thechair and table idea developed. As part ofform exploration I thought about the toroid,or a doughnut with a hole in the middle. Cutup, it would make book-ends or a coat hook,and I think I extrapolated the idea to taking aquarter of a turning, removing a section, andso making it possible to sit on the quarterturning. From one turning I could make fourchairs. Neat idea, and all I needed was a lathebig enough to turn about 7' in diameter.”

Bud Thomas, his then father-in-law,helped him to engineer the enormous latherequired by suggesting using a truck axle anddifferential as the mechanism for a home-made variable speed lathe, which would pro-vide the slowness necessary to turn the largeforms. The lathe was stabilized by housejacks that wedged the bed between the floorand ceiling, to keep the lathe from dancingall over the place. The most impressiveresults from this machine were the Westernred cedar chairs mentioned earlier.

Donald Lloyd McKinley, a noted Cana-dian furnituremaker and a mentor of Hog-bin’s, wrote a feature article about Hogbinthat appeared in the April 1974 issue of CraftHorizons (the forerunner of American Craft)and included images of the work producedon this lathe. This exposure is particularlynoteworthy because, until the mid-1970s,there was little published about contempo-rary woodworking, turning, or furniture, inCraft Horizons or anywhere else.At about thesame time, John Kelsey, a Cleveland news-paper reporter with a strong interest inwoodworking, came to visit Hogbin. Thatmeeting influenced Kelsey to go to school tostudy woodworking, and he eventuallybecame editor-in-chief of the fledgling mag-azine Fine Woodworking. “It’d be easy to saythat Stephen Hogbin has given me morebreakthrough thinking and directionalinsight that anyone else I ever met. I thinkhe is a rare intelligence bordering on genius,and a man of towering intellectual integrity.”Their association resulted in a number ofarticles written by Hogbin for the magazinein the late seventies and early eighties.


CClloocckkwwiissee ffrroomm uuppppeerr lleefftt::

“Space for a Bowl” (1972); Western red cedar;

43⁄4" x 10" x 10".

“Egg Cup” (1975); Silky brown oak; 45⁄16" x 81⁄4" x 2".

Stephen Hogbin in 1975 making an off-center cut

through a large turning of white ash to create a

headboard and footboard for a bed. ALL

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Given the lack of response to his 1972show, Hogbin decided to make his nextventure more noticeable. Looking back, hedescribed the sequence of events in a waythat sounds like an alignment of the stars,but it was a combination of luck, carefulplanning, and cutting edge creative workon a grand scale. He secured a bigger, moreimportant venue, Aggregation Gallery, andtimed the show to coincide with the WorldCraft Conference in Toronto in 1974.

He also employed a clever marketingstrategy: “The poster for my show could bemade into a series of postcards by tearingalong perforated lines. Each card had a dif-ferent image of my work with the inscrip-tion ‘Having a good time at the WorldCrafts Conference—wish you were here…’

and then some space for a short messagefrom the person sending it. The postcardswere picked up for free at the conferenceand sent around the globe!” His show wasa resounding success.

A group of Australians attending theconference encouraged him to apply for aresidency that was in the offing at Mel-bourne State College. Hogbin said aboutthis, “Carpe diem…which originally meant‘gather the day,’ a term that I prefer to ‘seizethe day.’ It is as if the fragments of the dayare brought together, prioritized, put inrelationship, and acted upon.” He wasselected for a one-year residency for 1975-1976. Residencies are more plentiful now,but they were rare then, and this one wasparticularly prestigious.

Few people had any idea what Hogbin wasup to half way around the world, and, if itweren’t for the book he wrote chronicling hisexperience, it would have been difficult toappreciate the scope of his efforts. Wood Turning: The Purpose of the Object was pub-lished in 1980. It didn’t follow the “how-to”approach, common then and now, but wasbased on concept and design. Hogbindescribed his approach to design: sketchingforms, reworking those ideas on a larger scale,incorporating the functional aspects of thework before making the final object. There’san ingenious chart that describes categories ofobjects that humans need, classified accord-ing to the purpose of the object and the waythe object is designed and produced, and bywhat categories of craftsman or designer.


The work Hogbin produced during the mid-70s was

made using a large variable speed lathe shop-built

from a truck differential and axle. AAtt tthhee uuppppeerr lleefftt

the lathe is set for turning between centers.

One of the more remarkable projects from this

period are his table and two chairs cut and shaped

from an enormous laminated red cedar turning

77" in diameter and 14" thick. AAbboovvee,, one of the

completed chairs. AAtt nneeaarr lleefftt, the work-in-

progress after the first cut.

AAtt ffaarr lleefft is a poster from Hogbin’s 1974 show at

the Aggregation Gallery in Toronto. Each of the

six images could be removed by tearing along a

perforated line to create postcards.

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The heart of the book, however, is thegallery section that contains over fiftyimages of the work produced during hisresidency. There is some furniture, mostnotably “Bird Table,” intended to suggestthe range of motion of a bird in flight. Thetechnique borrows from German ring turn-ing of the late 1800s, in which a ring wasturned with a cross-section that looked likean animal, and the ring was sliced into mul-tiples of identical toys. Hogbin turned onelarge disc and then sliced it in half, expos-ing the entire cross-section, in the shape ofa bird. Many of the objects are “bowl inves-tigations,” but there’s also an assortment of

other functional pieces including racks,spoons, scoops, whisks, bookends, and aseries of salad servers that he still revisits onoccasion. These are simple spindle turningsintended to be inexpensive productionitems that have been split in half and carvedinto the bowl end, leaving the tool marks.

The most remarkable object in the book,though, is the “Egg Cup.” I remember the firsttime I flipped through the book and cameupon the image of it. I froze. While it clearlycontained turned elements, it transcendedmy usual inquisitiveness as to how it wasmade. To this day, it remains my favoriteturned object. It was made by working froma block of wood about 8" square by about 1"thick, turning only the two faces. It was thencut into four pieces and glued face-to-faceand edge-to-edge. The entire contents of thebook seemed to me to be twenty years aheadof its time. Now, nearly thirty years later, it isstill twenty years ahead of its time.


AAbboovvee,, lleefftt:: “Bird Table” (1976); Australian yellow

walnut; 105⁄8" deep x 351⁄2" in diameter.

AAbboovvee,, rriigghhtt:: A section of the 200'-long screen

(1977) enclosing the Toronto Reference Library.

BBeellooww:: Hogbin designed and built a variable-arm

milling machine to fabricate such work. He contin-

ues to use it for both large and small projects.

A new chapter in Hogbin’s career openedin the mid-1970s as a result of a faceplateturning that he sliced into strips, rotating eachstrip 90° to create a small screen. An architectapproached him about making somethingsimilar on a larger scale. Hogbin was game,even when he realized that the plan called fora wall over 200' long and 7' tall!

Undeterred, he once again invented amachine to make it possible. He called it avariable arm milling machine. He thoughtthat by moving the tool instead of the wood,he could expand the size of the object that hecould produce. “The milling started with thelibrary screen in 1976. I see my work as devel-oping a vocabulary of techniques, forms andideas that may be returned to or will set aboutthinking up a new idea. It was a difficultchoice, back in the late seventies, between theturning activity and the potential of themilling machine. Spending the rest of my lifeexploring turning was too single techniquefocused. Exploring the milling machine hadthe same potential as the turned work. So Idid both while trying to sort out what thecontent was about in my work.” He used themachine in a number of projects into theeighties and later when the design required it.

In the early 1980s, Hogbin revisited thevessel form in his “Walking Bowl” series.Unlike the experiments in the early 1970s,this work abandons symmetry. Like the“Space for a Bowl,” the form is turned, thistime with long flanges, and then cut in half.The top edge is glued together, but thehalves are shifted so that it is no longer sym-metrical and the flanges act as vertical sup-ports to elevate the bowl form. This work ismore organic than his earlier, more graphicbowls, and has a sense of motion by havingone of the “legs” sit flat, while the other restson one point, and has actual motion, sincethe bowls can be rocked. As sculptor and

collector Robyn Horn observes, “Stephen’swork is far-reaching. His concept of rework-ing the turned piece, of cutting segmentsapart and reassembling them, started manyof us looking at the lathe in a different way.Rather than limiting process, the lathe couldbe used as an avenue toward sculpture.”

But Hogbin’s direction was about tochange yet again, as he explains: “In the earlyeighties I resolved to back away from theturning field. Many wonderful people,highly skilled and imaginative, were takingthe domain forward…It also felt too com-petitive and that is not a good environmentfor me to work in.” Hogbin now had a desireto act locally with an eye toward conserva-tion. “I was always interested in regional

activity. It is essentially a craft attitude. It wasinteresting that the position in Australiaopened for me because I wanted to workwith the local woods. It seemed so obviousto me back then but it was not the prevalentattitude in Australia except by the conserva-tionists. The Australians were simultane-ously on a leading edge and way ahead ofmany in an appreciation for the local quali-ties of place, conserving native species and,in the arts, how that attitude may influencethe work. When we returned from Australiain 1976 it was to get involved with a localcommunity, though that did not really geluntil moving in 1979 to the region in whichI now live. It seemed timely to focus on myown place as the public art installations


TToopp:: A maquette for a large-scale architectural

installation from 1981 called “Calibrated Earth,”

made using the variable-arm milling machine.

MMiiddddllee,, lleefftt:: “Salad Servers” (1986); various

woods and sizes.

MMiiddddllee,, rriigghhtt:: “Balancing Bowl” (1985);

zebrawood; 11" high.

BBoottttoomm,, lleefftt:: “Mending” (1993); painted wood;

13" x 23" x 15". The pattern carved on the pad is

a reproduction of Hogbin’s fingerprint.

BBoottttoomm,, rriigghhtt::“Fifth Season Cycle Center” (1994); an

outdoor installation in Owen Sound, Ontario, involv-

ing Hogbin and four other artists from the region.

started in earnest with government, corpo-rations and community projects.”

He branched out to collaborate ondesigns for outdoor public spaces. Thiswork is particularly satisfying for himbecause many more people can experiencethe finished product. It allowed for the cre-ation of larger volumes of space and for theuse of other materials, such as concrete,steel, and paint. The public installations,beginning with the 200' library wall, madehim well known in his community inToronto and in the Lake Charles area, intro-ducing him to a clientele for custom resi-dential work. These projects are combina-tions of built-in and free-standing furni-ture, cabinetry, and staircases. One of hisrecent projects lasted three years, providinghim with income over an extended period

of time, which Hogbin understandablyfinds preferable to speculative gallery work.

After the furniture made from the largeturnings in the 1970s, he did not return tomaking individual furniture pieces againuntil 2001. Since then he has produced anumber of chair designs and an ongoingseries of pedestal tables made of wood andglass. Many of these pieces include turnedelements, but they are not the “tour de force”turnings of the 1970s. The turned parts aremuch more conservative in both design anduse of material but contain carefully consid-ered detailing that is uniquely Hogbin’s. His“DAC Nomad Chair” was designed so thathe could pack up six chairs in his luggage andassemble them in England for a client there.They have no glued joints and are tensionedtogether with cable and toggle fasteners.

An aspect of Hogbin’s work is contempla-tive and philosophical. There is a body ofwork that he calls “Sacred Secular,” includingface mirrors, a series of later “Walking Bowls”with descriptive titles and with portraitsdrawn on them in pencil, as well as realisti-cally rendered still-lifes of oversized sewingneedles combined with comparatively under-sized books and thimbles. Here he againexplores questions of scale and asks the viewerto reconsider the objects in this context.

In 2000 Hogbin published his secondbook, Appearance & Reality: A Visual Hand-book for Artists, Designers and Makers, writ-ten as a resource for designing in generaland expanding on the ideas and categoriesin his first book. Unlike his first book, theobjects shown, ranging from two-dimen-sional works to a small pot to sculptures,


buildings and landscapes, were mostly notmade by Hogbin. Instead, they were chosento give the reader the broadest context inwhich to consider design. He is currentlyworking on a new book, titled Evaluating:the critique in the studio workshop.

If you read his essays, his books, or speakwith him, you get a greater understanding ofthe depth of thought that goes into the objectsthat Hogbin makes. For example, here he con-siders the relationship of commerce and art:“In Jane Jacobs’ book Systems of Survival, thereis a distinction made between the guardianmoral syndrome and the commercial moralsyndrome. Simply put, these are our socialvalues of caring and the values of utility andwhat do I get out of it. I don’t like theseoptions, which force an either-or discussion,

but I find it interesting that Jane Jacobs thinksit’s important they don’t get mixed up—thatour commercial values are not applied to ourhumanity. In my practice as a maker, the dis-tinction is not always clear. Perhaps others seemy activity as nothing more than a utilitarianproduct, whereas I see what I make as a set ofhuman values with a story. The object is theoutcome, the physical manifestation, of thestory, or as I prefer, the song.”

If Hogbin’s early work emerged on thescene today, it seems to me that it would havean even greater impact than it did then,because the field is so much larger and has ahigher profile. Thirty years later, the work isstill completely on the cutting edge. I askedhim if he would make the large Western redcedar chairs again and he gave the answer that

I expected, which was no. The reason, how-ever, was a surprise. I assumed that it wasphysical self-preservation that stopped him,because it’s such a dangerous undertaking.But his concern now is conservation: he couldbuild six chairs with the wood he used tomake one of those chairs. He assured me thathe had no fear of the physical risk at all. Per-haps it’s the same fearlessness that has allowedhim to thrive as a creative designer and makerfor all of these years, never letting what seemto be insurmountable obstacles get in his way.

POSTSCRIPTIn 2007, Hogbin (along with Giles Gilson

and Mark Lindquist) was an inaugural recipientof the American Association of Woodturners’Professional Outreach Program Merit Award forhis lifetime achievements and the influence he’shad on contemporary woodturning.

Appearance & Reality was originally producedand distributed by Cambium Press, but is nowavailable from The Ginger Press [848 SecondAvenue East, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada N4K2H3; www.gingerpress.com; (800) 463-9937]. Evaluating is also available from The Ginger Press.

Mark Sfirri is a woodworker and turner wholives in New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is thecoordinator and professor in the Fine Wood-working Program at Bucks County Commu-nity College in Newtown, Pennsylvania.


OOppppoossiittee ppaaggee,, cclloocckkwwiissee ffrroomm uuppppeerr lleefftt::

“Totem Table” (2002); Sheteak, glass; 55" x 12" x 12".

“Collector’s Cabinet” (2004); cherry, holly, maple;

50" x 15" x 15".

“Set Up” (2006); wood, mirror, glass.

“DAC Nomad Chair” (2006); Baltic birch, ash,

steel, paint.

Spiral staircase (2003), part of a large residential

project that occupied Hogbin for three years.

TThhiiss ppaaggee:: In 2005 Hogbin designed, fabricated, and

installed these floors in the same house. At top is

“Connections and Transitions” (ebonized ash carved

to reveal Baltic birch lamination underneath). At

right is “Mandala Wheels” (painted and carved oak).

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An extract from Evaluating:the critique in the studioworkshop. Chapter 3: The Creative Tool Box

FOR A MAKER, the toolbox is a familiar placefor the tools of the trade. Mine includes severalkinds of saws, planes, hammers, drivers, abra-sives, and so on—some are hand tools andsome are powered. What does the creativetoolbox contain? When did you last sharpenyour creative tools?

Your creative toolbox starts with the mind;it contains most of the motivational stuff neededto get up and running. Assuming you are a self-starter, you are able to reflect on what you wantto do and respond to problems, whether theyare self-made or constructed by circumstance.Making decisions is making the piece. The sim-plest model for creativity is first to analyze bythinking and then synthesize by doing.

WHAT TO THINK ABOUT AND THEN WHAT TO DO

There are many strategies for designing anobject. Although they all follow a similar format,makers star t with different methods orapproaches. For example, this work of MichaelHosaluk or Mark Sfirri demonstrates a concernfor material and form, while the designs of JudyKensley McKie and Gord Peteran explore nar-rative or concept.

The model I shall look at first relates to thedesigner who is often solving problems throughcommissions. Materials are central to the solu-tion of the studio workshop maker and func-tional requirements are layered on top; thesehave to come together in a form that is aesthet-ically appropriate.

Use all your senses and intellect to sor tthrough the essentials. Experience and memoryplay an important role at this stage, but some-times it is necessary to go a step further. Col-lect all the facts about the situation that will helpdefine the problem. If a question can be formu-lated at this point that addresses the issues, somuch the better. Now sit back and let the pre-conscious work. More often than not, an idea

will appear from nowhere when you arerelaxed but attentive. Taking a walk, driving thecar, washing dishes, or sanding mindlessly onanother project often starts the ideas to flowor at least pop into the mind unexpectedly.

Even with a busy schedule it is necessary totake some time to meditate on the situation.Nothing happens unless opportunity is givensome space from all the other pressures sur-rounding you.

Next, it’s important to capture these firstresponses by writing—and certainly sketching—while continuing to mull the project over in yourmind. Ideas come from different parts of thebrain; depending on which part of your creativebrain is dominant, you may get concepts orwords rather than forms and shapes. Gettingthese ideas together does take practice andrequires a balanced frame of mind. One idea maykeep returning and often it’s the best one; how-ever, always take note of the quiet, tentative, cau-tious whisper that tries to come into focus. With

many ideas generated, it becomes easier to selectwhich one works best in relationship to the ques-tion or problem statement. What to think aboutmoves on to what to do or, as the saying goes,“what you think about comes about.”

Once you have selected the best idea, sec-ondary planning may begin. It’s not that you stopthinking; rather, your activity becomes morephysical: drawing the idea, measuring for accu-racy, searching for good proportions and qual-ity of line, meeting the functional requirements,and making models, mock-ups and prototypes.All the time, you are assessing how well the cho-sen idea is working against the original questionor problem statement. It is possible that otherideas of a secondary nature come into play dur-ing this process. Designing never really stops.Refinement is essential at all stages of making.

Finally, the design is finished and so is theobject. Stand back and take a look with a criticaleye. Start the process again. What if this waschanged a little here? What if that was adjusted alittle there? Most objects are the result of an evo-lutionary process. What seemed like a good ideamay well change over time as refinements aremade. This process of sensing the issue, activatingmemory, incubating ideas, and finally modeling thesolution should be a well-used part of your cre-ative toolbox. There is, however, no single correctmethod of making. I will now fill in and around theprocess described above with four further cre-ativity-generating investigations: 1) looking andseeing; 2) making and experimenting; 3) storiesand precedence; and 4) concept and subject.

1. LOOKING AND SEEINGI always wanted to draw. Being able to make

a likeness on paper was as magical as the besttrick from a talented conjuror. I wasn’t muchgood at drawing until I went to art school andwas put in front of a still life with twenty otherstudents. “Look at the spaces between theobjects, and draw them as much as the actualobject,” the instructor said. This was a fascinatingidea that I had not heard before. Thanks to somebeginner’s luck, praise was heaped on my earli-est student work. I was a short-lived savant: mynext drawings were pretty bad and it became astruggle to regain what I had done intuitively. The


most important part of the experience was thelooking and seeing. It took time to develop aconsistent standard with the nuance of eachcurve and transition in the plants, ceramic pots,and chair backs. I needed to learn to see eachobject I was drawing as if for the first time: sharp,in focus, and as a heightened experience.

Imagination develops slowly. First ideas arenot always brilliant but they contain the sense ofsomething new happening. Combining that witha developing drawing skill and the experience ofseeing one s own ideas evolve was a back-of-the-neck tingling experience for me as a student.I discovered the “oh wow” adrenaline rush that,for the creative person, leads to the absoluteneed to make it! Although the translation fromdrawing to making is slow to learn, it carries adifferent magic to the making of ideas.

It does not always help to draw before mak-ing. Although a vague idea of what may happenis useful, the quality of line on a sheet of papersays more about drawing and not so muchabout a cylindrical form with subtle curves.Some objects, especially woodturnings, are bestput on the lathe and shaped directly.

Drawing aids the senses. It slows down theprocess of looking and naming essential aspects.Some drawings are diagrammatic and symbolic,appealing to the intellect rather than the senses.Drawing also carries an emotional aspect. Thequality of line may change our perception orunderstanding of the object: the soft blackgraphite lines of a 6B pencil can be perceivedas more erotic than a 2H drafting lead. Althoughthe emotional quality adds to the accurate rep-resentation, realism cannot exist in a drawing

because it is flat and life is round. Drawing fromnature is in itself an act of creation. It brings uscloser to god. “Realism” has to be modified bythe imagination of the artist. Judy McKie maypossibly draw from life but the animal forms inher furniture are always from the imagination.The experience of seeing it for the first time—the artist’s vision—has to be carried forwardinto the finished piece.

Drawing includes everything from the quicksketch to the measured drawing where propor-tions and the relationship of the par ts areworked out. It is dangerous to design furniture inelevation since that’s not the way we see the fin-ished work. We never see a dining chair in ele-vation unless perhaps we need to crawl on thefloor to pick up a spoon. Most often a dining chairis approached from the back and that is the pointof view that the sketch should articulate: thethree-quarter view of the chair back.

If I can draw it with thoughtful sketches andcarefully measured details, I can probably makeit. The architect and furniture designer EdwardGodwin points out that “a piece of furniture can-not be artistic by any happy-go-lucky process.Little things of this kind, to be artistic, impera-tively demand no inconsiderable amount ofthought and much careful sized drawing.” (HughHonour quoting Godwin in Cabinet Makers andFurniture Designers, page 257)

Another reason for drawing first is to savehuge amounts of material from being wasted.Also, the designer has to be able to communi-cate, whether to the client, the sales office of amanufacturer, or an artisan at the bench. Thedesigner has to make sure others too see thevision for the piece. Does the drawing show thelook of the piece? Does it show how the pieceis made?

But where do ideas come from? Look andsee what is around you. It helps to have a widerange of experience that has been deeply felt andclearly seen. Ideas come from nature, makingthings, precedence of the discipline and intellec-tual constructs. The imagination gets better at jux-taposing new ways of seeing when this is prac-ticed on a regular basis. Staying fit through exer-cise is important physically and equally for theimagination. In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Look-ing Glass, Alice talking with the Queen says, “Onecan’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay youhaven’t had much practice,” responds the Queen.“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as manyas six impossible things before breakfast.”

—SH

Evaluating is illustrated with 49 drawings that

Stephen Hogbin made of different objects by

various artists. At far left is Mark Sfirri’s “Candle

Holder”; above are (left to right) Judy McKie’s

“Leopard Couch” and Gord Peteran’s “Beam

Table”; below is Michael Hosaluk’s “Box.”

woodwork feature

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