Learn about the influential woodworkers who shaped the craft and inspired us all.
Notable Woodworkers Since the 1600s is a concise, informative, and essential reference manual for both hobbyist and professional woodworkers. It describes the evolution of woodworking from the time when individual craftsmen were first recognized as masters at the trade and carries us through centuries of style to modern methodology and materials. The book depicts the journey from adze and spokeshave to CNCs and CAD, with stops along the way in the woodshops of the finest practitioners.
While the primary focus is on cabinetmakers and furniture builders, the umbrella also covers designers, educators, and decorative artists such as carvers and turners who have made significant contributions. From Chippendale to Norm Abram, design/build has intrigued both furniture buyers and builders as both a creative art and a way to soothe the soul. Notable Woodworkers introduces the portfolios of familiar names who have guided that quest and personalizes them. It also opens windows on work that may not be so well-known but is equally significant.
A perfect gift for the woodworker in your life, this is a sequential, chronological index to those who have piloted growth in the craft--in essence, a Who's Who of woodworking since the seventeenth century from Sheraton and Stickley to Krenov and Maloof. Come, meet the masters . . .
English, John: -
John English is a cabinetmaker and woodturner who has written widely for woodworking and how-to magazine and book publishers. He is perhaps best known for his regular contributions since 1993 to Woodshop News, a trade magazine. John was an assistant editor and then the editor of Woodworker's Journal in Minneapolis in the late '90s, and has written hundreds of magazine articles for leading publications, including Today's Woodworker, Popular Woodworking, American Woodworker, American How-To, Fine Woodworking, and the U.K. publication The Woodworker/Good Woodworking. Born in Ireland, he trained as a cabinetmaker in South Dakota and was the director of the Black Hills School of Woodworking from 2007 through 2013. In the studio, he worked extensively with artist and beader Anna Achziger to create fine furniture and beaded hollow vessels. He is the author of several books, including Harvest Your Own Lumber and Turning Wood with Carbide Tools. He contributed to The Complete Book of Woodworking (Landauer) and the Collins Complete Woodworker, which was published under the imprint of the Smithsonian Institution. Several of his projects appear in two series of how-to books by the editors of American How-To and Woodworker's Journal, the latter in association with Fox Chapel Publishing. John also writes fiction and has received a Fellowship from the Arts Council in Fiction Writing (Wyoming, 2006).
