Mildred’s Lane Dispatch

waterfall.jpg

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 falls of the Delaware Water Gap . koupit scabo

bridge1.jpg

bridge designed by Roeblin, originally used as an aqueduct

I stopped to walk across the country’s oldest cable-suspension bridge, designed by John Roebling decades before the Brooklyn Bridge, then paid my respects at the Zane Grey museum across the river before continuing on to Narrowsburg a few miles upstream. After a dinner prepared by some the Fellows of Mildred’s Lane we were treated to a provocative presentation of landscape photography by Jeffrey Jenkins called ‘Landscape and Perception’. melhor preço ivermectina Continue reading “Mildred’s Lane Dispatch”

Roadtrip to Mildred’s Lane

brigclouds1.jpg

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 crossed the river hundreds of times, but this will be my first exploration of its full length as I meander its contours in preparation for my residency on site at Mildred’s Lane, outside of Narrowsburg, PA. 888 ???? I’ll stop in small towns along the way, looking at architecture and regional antiques, thinking about what I’d like to make next week and how it might relate to the river’s rich history. ????? ?????

peaches.jpg

I traveled overland  through the heart of South Jersey’s growing region, and stopped at a farm stand for peaches and blueberries to eat en route to Trenton, where I’d pick up the road North along the river. Continue reading “Roadtrip to Mildred’s Lane”

A Wholesome Chair

chairdoodle1.jpg

modified Windsor chair concept with steam-bent, bundled parts

Most of my furniture design over the past ten years or so has developed either from a particular need or from the properties of a particular material, usually wood. Lately I’ve been wanting to broaden my target by channeling my resources into the creation of a signature chair, a Deepcraft icon that adds to the canon of classic chair design. One of the goals of this experimental site is to unpack exactly what that means and hopefully discover how to translate a design philosophy into a truly sustainable production model in the process.

chairdoodle2.jpg

If and when I succeed, the thinking behind the chair will fold into the chair’s broad appeal as one of life’s Simple Good Things and I will assuage any guilt about burdening consumer culture with yet more stuff. More ambitiously, the chair will stand in for a philosophy of design with the potential to more broadly influence the built environment and contribute to the (critique of) public taste. Ultimately, my interest is in how the natural and the built environments can work in congruency to suggest mutually beneficial loops. What follows are some of the discursive questions I have that guide my thinking in the process: Continue reading “A Wholesome Chair”

The Week in Bloom

buckeyebarn.jpg

Native to the state, the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) grows prolifically along seasonal streams and south-facing hillsides, and was often planted as an ornamental next to barns and schoolhouses of West Sonoma County. The tree has been in bloom for longer than expected this year with the cooler weather, and its sweet smelling blossoms are a heady complement to the freshly harvested hay as we ride to the coast. Sometimes called the California Horse Chestnut, the Buckeye gets its name from its large, poisonous nuts, which feature a white spot resembling a buck’s eye. The Pomo Indians occasionally resorted to processing the nut for consumption, and famously used its toxins to stupefy fish. Continue reading “The Week in Bloom”

Field Lab

bodger3.jpg

Bodger’s camp in the Chiltern beech woods, late 19th century (from The English Regional Chair, Bernard D. Cotton, Antique Collector’s Club, 1990)

The strategy behind my residency at Mildred’s Lane will be multi-tiered, ranging from the development of a working, craft  production facility on site to the promotion and marketing of Goods to be produced, via the World Wide Web. I’m calling the craft production facility Field Lab, and it will build on the tradition of Windsor Chair making that originated along the Thames River during the 18th century, upstream and to the West of London.

map3.jpg

Windsor chair making  in the The Chilterns and Thames Valley (from The English Regional Chair, Bernard D. Cotton, Antique Collector’s Club, 1990)

The actual product will be determined through a survey of available skills and resources reflecting the aspirations of Mildred’s Lane as well as its bioregional provenance. Whatever the specific outcome, my farther-reaching goals will be to introduce some icon of elegant utility that upholds the Deepcraft ethos I’ve articulated on these pages, where equal pleasure is derived from the making, distribution, use and improvement of the Goods made. Beyond my residency, the Field Lab will live on  as a contemporary interpretation of the traditional ‘bodger’s shack’ (pictured at top), taking advantage of modern conveniences befitting the Deepcraft paradigm. My hope is that the Field Lab will elicit the same feeling conveyed in a 1955 letter by Mr George Dean, one of the last traditional chair makers of the Chiltern Woodland:

“It was a strangely enjoyable life, carefree and a bit lonesome if your mate was away. In the spring it was lovely as the trees took on their fresh green leaf, and in the winter, the sighing of the wind and the sight of the birds gathering in the branches when the smoke ascended at meal times. Occasionally the robins would build by the lathe side in the thatch, and hatch the eggs and rear the young. Now and then a wren would make a cosy nest and flit about. Once a flock of pigeons descended on the trees around our shops just after dark. The noise of their flapping wings was alarming as they settled in the tree tops, too exhausted to heed us very much as we worked by candlelight in our primitive way.”

-from The English Regional Chair, Bernard D. Cotton, Antique Collector’s Club, 1990

Click here to follow the thread of posts relating to Mildred’s Lane.