Astragal Press
The Astragal Press, is a small, independent press located in Mendham, NJ. It was founded by Martyl and Emil Pollak in 1983 to publish books, at affordable prices, for those interested in antique tools and early trades and technologies. They publish new works as well as reprints of out-of-print classics, and have developed into one of the principal resources for those interested in areas such as antique tool collecting, metalworking, carriage building, early science and early trades.
Carving in New York City
Maura Macaluso is a native New York City artist and traditional American woodcarver, specializing in custom designs and carvings. She found her passion for wood at the feet of her grandfather as a small child. In his little shed in upstate New York, they whittled, sawed, made things and burnt wood in the little potbelly stove he had. At age 40, an injury sidelined her, and her love of wood and art came together as an accident in her small basement workshop. She became a self-taught, obsessed woodcarver, who has since studied with other carvers and is currently a New York City Parks Department woodcarving instructor. She has created award-winning wood sculptures, carvings, paintings, pyrography and woodworks.She also has a page at http://mycarvingclub.com/mauramacaluso
Caz Foster
Caz Foster is a self-taught craftswoman/artist in wood with a studio in the Northumberland countryside. The rolling hills, immense skies and rugged coastline of Northumbria and Scotland, together with the beautiful and diverse wildlife, forms much of the inspiration for her work in wood sculpture, turnery and watercolor paintings. A lifetime's love affair with expressing herself in wood has included sculpture, woodcarving, turnery, joinery, cabinetmaking, carpentry and teaching woodwork to women and the odd nephew or niece. Projects have ranged from a mug tree and solid wood cabinets and tables to fencing, wooden sheds,designing and building her home (in masonry but with all timber work, first and second fix, etc. done by herself) to sculptures, turnery and watercolors (paper is made from wood), etc. Some of her work is available for sale directly online at Wood Echoes.
Chainsaw Chix
The Chainsaw Chix represent the Women's division of the Masters gorup of chainsaw carvers and include performance carvers from all over the world.l Stephanie Huber, who studied woodcarving in Bavaria, represents Germany. Representing the United States is Lisa Foster. Alicia Charlton from Canada has a background in stone carving. Angela Polglaze from Australia has won numerous chainsaw carving awards. The Chainsaw Chix carve in competitive events and also do live performances and demonstrations.
Christmas Carvings
Christine Coffman has been carving for 44 years, since she was 12. Christine was first taught to carve by her father in 1963. Self-taught from that time, her style has become distinct and reflective of her North European heritage. Linden wood is used due to the perfect pairing of its properties to her needs. Butternut wood is used for its interesting grain patterns. Some of her carvings are whimsical. Some are serious. In each carving she attempts, she hopes that people will see reflected in her work the satisfaction she derives from carving.
Designs in Wood
Florence Webb is a woman who designs and builds art furniture. She began woodcarving as a hobby a couple of years ago, and it just snowballed to the point where her garage is completely filled with woodworking tools and she is building full-time. Her tall cabinet was just accepted into her first juried art show.
Final Turn Studio
The Final Turn Adirondack studio artists, Cherie and Rob Lasher are a husband and wife team who lathe turn spalted and highly figured hardwoods into exquisite, one-of-a-kind "Northrnlights" lamps and vases. They harvest ancient logs aging on the forest floor, yielding wood with vibrant grain markings from weather, insect tracks, spore marks and pressure fussures. These qualities enhance the unique character of maple, birch, elm, oak, ash, hardhack and walnut. Tiger and curly maple designs are a specialty.
Lamps and vases are finished naturally, stained or artistically hand painted by Cherie. Cherie also collects fresh leaves and designs hand painted “Botanical Leaf” shades to complement the distinctive features of each lamp.
Izabela Rodzen
Izabela Rodzen feels that making furniture is a very personal endeavor. Her aim is to create works that fulfill a functional and aesthetic goal and elevate the way you think and feel about your environment and quality of life. She believes strongly that the experience of using handmade objects is different from that of using their machine-made equivalents: not just different, but better.
Jaicorick Woodworks
Jaime Boulanger-Whear has been a woodworker all of her life, working in the shop with her father. Recently she has found that her niche and love is in the wonderful world of wood turning. She has just started a business in Western Massachusetts making high-end pens, pencils and other small items. She is in the beginning stages of turning bowl and small boxes.
Jan Walker
Jan Walker discovered marquetry about a dozen years ago, but was discouraged to find no up-to-date information on the craft. Being stubborn, she scratched along, learning how to work with veneer on her own. She now teaches marquetry and has developed a beginner's DVD to save others the frustration of having to learn things the hard way - by mistakes. She also designs marquetry kits and patterns. This work has turned into a passion for her.
Janet Collins
Janet A. Collins, furniture maker, specializes in building traditional furniture. Most pieces are built on commission and many feature turning, carving or inlay. In addition to building furniture, she teaches workshops in furniture making.
JoAnn Schuch Woodworking
JoAnn Schuch got into woodworking because she wanted great furniture, and she thought she could make better than what she saw in stores. After years of learning on her own, with the help of books and the the advice of whoever was oldest guy in the lumberyard, she now builds a high-end product.
K.E. Pomroy Custom Woodworking
Kay Pomroy finally turned her hobby into a business in 2006. K E Pomroy Custom Woodworking is a small operation where she turns, designs and builds furniture, does limited remodeling and teaches lessons. She's built dining room tables, beds, occasional tables, lamps, chests, etc. She also runs something called "The Reaching Down Project," where she builds furniture for people in a real need. For example, when she found out that four elementary students from four different families were sleeping on the floor in dirty, gross conditions, she, with a lot of volunteer help, made four captain's beds with three drawers and a bookcase and delivered each bed two days before Christmas. This year, she's focused on providing bookcases to shelters with the thought that if you have to go to a shelter, you might be able to lose yourself in a book. Another aspect is to teach unskilled men and women (homeless, down and out, welfare recipient, etc.) an aspect in woodworking and provide a scholarship program to get them from Kay's shop to a vocational school to rebuild, or build, a self-sustaining life.
Kat Cat Intarsia
Kathy lives on the coast of Oregon and has been doing intarsia for five years. She is self-taught and loves the attention to detail required for intarsia. She creates intarsia items from patterns and as custom pieces.
Knox Mountain Woodworking of VT
Knox Mountain Woodworking of Vermont, located at the foot of Knox Mountain in Orange, Vermont, was established as a result of the longtime dream of Sue McLam to create works of beauty, strength and usefulness in the Early American Country style of furniture. Working with North American hardwoods such as cherry, maple, oak, hickory, and walnut, her furniture is built to last for generations.
Little Cedar Log Homes
Debbie & Alan Smithey run a small family business constructing log homes and cabins. While offering a full range of construction services in Missouri, they also offer "enclosed shell" services in surrounding states. Each home is built one at a time, and on average, takes them six to eight months to complete. They'll also do frame construction, additions, remodeling, and more... but really love building log homes!
Makeville Studio
A lighting designer by training, Robyn Mierzwa has enjoyed woodworking and furniture design "on the side" for years.
Wanting to share her passion for designing, building and crafting with others, she started Makeville Studio, "a hands-on lab for craft,building, art and invention". We offer classes, workshop space, and tools with a special focus on giving beginning woodworkers a solid foundation in tool operation, safety and techniques. Everyone should experience the deep satisfaction that comes with
making something with your own two hands. Furniture, lighting,decorative and functional objects, art...Given the right tools and the knowledge how to use them, you'll be amazed at what you can create!
Martindale Woodcrafts
Liz Mason is an American now living in South Africa. She had always been interested in woodworking, but had never had the opportunity. In 2001, she made a drastic change in her life and met someone over the Internet and, in 2002, moved to South Africa. In February 2007, they acquired a woodworking business. Liz went for a week training with the previous owners and today she has a growing business. Martindale Woodcrafts is her dream business and in fact, it's too much fun to be called work.
Mission Oak Design
Connie Slagle started this business several years ago with nothing more than a circular saw and a piece of oak. She built elevated dog feeders. Since then, she has grown to sell Mission furniture nationwide. She worked in sub-zero weather. She worked in temperatures reaching over 95 degrees.
She learned all about oak by researching the Internet. If she needed to build a piece of furniture, she looked at it and drew a picture in her mind during her sleep. Jumped out of bed the next morning and built it, if it's not right, she builds it again until it is right.
Northern Spalting (Seri Robinson)
Seri Robinson is a PhD student at Michigan Technological University in the forestry (wood science) department. Her work is in the BioArt field, primarily inducing spalting under lab conditions and controlling its growth and development. She also spalts her own wood for her small business. Conceptually, she sees spalted wood as mroe of a decorative canvas that can interact with other images to create a more visually interactive piece.
Old Skool Wooden Tattooz
Mona M. Hammel has worked all her life and raised four children. She is now a grandmother of eight and proud of it. Her children, her parents and her grandchildren are her inspiration for a lot of her work in woodworking ideas. When health issues kept her at home about 12 years ago, she started doing woodworking. Her fiance taught her a lot about woodworking. Now she feels she could make about anything that she set her mind to: it is a hobby for her and she so loves it. She also realized how when one does woodworking or some form of art, they seem to appreciate all sorts of art. Through drawing and making the different items that she has made she also realizes it is limitless. This gives her a chance to make gifts for everyone. She has also started a website and ebay store and would like to expand into children's room decor -- she has done several pieces for her grandchildren. Men cannot believe she as a woman can use electric tools. The reaction that she gets is really strange sometimes, and they say the craziest things. Like "does someone cut that stuff out for you." NNNOOOOOO, they do not. She does it all herself, thank you.
Prinn Design
Christina and Wayne Prinn have been doing woodworking for 7 years. They do handcrafted intarsia (designed by Christina) as well as patterns for those wishing to make their own works of art. Intarsia takes many long and demanding hours of work;: first you must choose the proper colors and grains of the woods. All intarsia artwork is done with natural wood selections, from cedar, pine, poplar, walnut, cherry and oak. Then the groundwork must be carved, lowered and trenched. Next the wood is cut, sawed and sliced into tiles and these tiles are set one at a time, in a bed of glue. Finally the inlaid surface is sanded, rubbed down, and burnished, creating a lovely decorative piece.
Sawdust Dreams
Cleva Friel has spent most of her life in the mountains of West Virginia surrounded by the wonders of nature. Her grandfather, Lee Hammons, was a bluegrass artist and made dulcimers and banjos to take to fairs to sell. She spent many hours in his workshop playing in the sawdust as he worked. She has painted wildlife ever since she can remember and got started carving about three years ago after a trip to Tennessee where she saw a man carving a fireplace mantel. She is self-taught through reading any book she can find on the subject and asking any carver she meets questions. She does relief carving and 3- D carvings.
Smoky Mountain Woodworks
Smoky Mountain Woodworks is nestled on the western face of Piney Mountain, a foothill of the Great Smoky Mountains in the Cherokee National Forest. From this small woodshop, full-time woodworkers Doug and Marie Bittinger create fine accessories for the home. Marie does most of the design work, Doug figures out how to make them real, and they build them together.
The Maker of Beautiful Things
Keoma McCaffrey is a married mother of two and a woodworker. She carves hairpieces, spoons and jointed dolls.
Two Girls Remodeling
Deborah Hirt and Sarah DeLagostti started Two Girls Remodeling back in 1999. Their first job was jacking up a sinking kitchen floor, and business has mushroomed ever since. They have appeared in Remodeling Magazine, Sherwin-Williams’ Professional Painting Contractor, Delaware’s own “Community News”, and have done a couple of featured appearances in AOL’s House and Home Welcome Home. Are these two women outrageous? No, just very talented and perseverant. Trust me, ladies, there is nothing you can’t do if you put your minds to it.
WeMakeTotemPoles
Sylvia Cook is a chainsaw carver who makes totem poles and animal carvings. She has been carving for seven years and has been on a few TV shows and published in creative woodworks and crafts magazines and also about 20 newspapers all over the country. She likes to carve cedar logs that have already been taken down for some reason. She does not cut trees down just to carve; that would be sinful. She also uses sanders and grinders for the details and likes to paint her carvings. Some carvers like the natural wood grains, but Sylvia likes colors. She travels all over the country to carve totem poles for golf courses, summer camps, restaurants, bait shops, mini golf course and amusement parks. my web page is GardenSculptureArt.com my email is WeMakeTotemPoles@aol.com
thank you
Sylvia Cook
Wood New England
For over six years, Wood New England has been owned and operated by Susan and Rick Thibault in beautiful western Massachusetts. Their first items were solid wood mantle clocks with exquisite brass encased clockworks; the wood used was reclaimed oak and yellow pine from a 250-year-old southern New England factory building. They branched out with cherry and quartersawn oak Shaker- and Mission-inspired items -- planters, tables, mirrors -- and in July 2001, added Western red cedar Adirondack furniture and kits to their product line. And, although their Adirondack furniture is very popular, they still find time to fill custom furniture requests.
WoodShop Artisans
Jason and Angela Frantz build custom cabinets and furniture in the St. Louis area. As a small shop, they focus attention on every piece produced. From fireplace mantles to bathroom vanities, libraries and offices, they can build it. They use only quality products such as 3/4" hardwood panels, native and exotic hardwoods, and environmentally friendly waterborne finishes. If a client has their heart set on a small, hard-to-find detail, they'll do everything they can to make the project something to smile about for the next 50 years.
