I made this sketch of a sixteenth century dining chair I saw at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The chair is thought to be either English or Scandinavian in origin, and we did see many like it at folk museums last summer while traveling around Norway and Estonia. The type is well suited for production […]
Category Archives: mildred’s lane
Mildred’s Lane Dispatch
David Brooks tests the completed pole lathe at Mildred’s Lane (photo by Walker Tufts) The Mildred’s Lane Fellows have completed the pole lathe using entirely materials from the land, and are ready to test its performance cutting green wood, split and foraged from recently fallen trees of beech, hickory and white oak. As I have […]
The Week in Bloom
the nuts of the beech (Fagus grandifolia) are edible While foraging for materials to build the pole lathe and develop a Mildred’s Lane product, my attention shifted continually from the trees overhead to the ground underfoot. Here is a sampling of some sightings during the course of a morning hike around the property, near the […]
Mildred’s Lane Dispatch
Mildred’s Lane Fellow, Tyler McPhee, stands by the completed pole lathe ‘motor’ Mildred’s Lane Fellows David Brooks and Tyler McPhee have made impressive progress with the Deep Craft: Bioregional Innovation Project I initiated earlier in the week. Using material culled from the land surrounding Mildred’s Lane, they have constructed the ‘motor’ for a human-powered lathe, […]
Mildred’s Lane Dispatch
an indigo bunting ready for James Prosek’s taxidermy workshop The artist/author James Prosek arrived yesterday morning and led the Mildred’s Lane Fellows in a taxidermy workshop while I surveyed the land for materials. I walked the perimeter of the property’s 90 acres and was pleased to find an abundance of beech and hickory saplings mixed […]
Mildred’s Lane Dispatch
waterfalls of the Delaware Water Gap The sky darkened as I arrived at Mildred’s Lane Friday afternoon, exploding into a violent thunderstorm with cracks of lightning and a drenching downpour. I was still damp from a mid-day swim in the river on my way up, after a tramp along a steep tributary to see the […]
Roadtrip to Mildred’s Lane
seascape under a stormy sky off the coast of Brigantine Island, New Jersey The Delaware River drains about four percent of the nation’s rainwater into the Atlantic through Delaware Bay, about 20 miles South of the island of Brigantine, New Jersey, where I began my journey to Mildred’s Lane. Growing up outside of Philadelphia, I’ve […]