Course Materials
To Prepare:
Enjoy looking through Dan’s five books, his website, www.danielmack.com, and work by Andy Goldsworthy, Chris Drury, Patrick Dougherty, David Nash and Nils Udo.
To Bring:
Materials/tools are supplied, but you are encouraged to bring some of your own tools and local materials to share
Checklist of Course Elements:
Goals:
- Increased facility with tools and techniques
- Better understanding of personal sense of design and motivations for Making
- Appreciation for breadth – the “grammar” – of natural materials
Tools:
| General Set-up | Tables, lights, storage, heat, safety, air cleaning, safety glasses |
| Drills: | 1/2”, 3/8”, corded, battery, “keyless chuck” |
| Drill Bits | Varieties, uses |
| Drill Press: | Floor, table model, use of V blocks, shims |
| Cutting: | |
| Saws: | Hand, folding, circular, reciprocating, jig, chain saws (gas, electric, battery), chop saw, safety, blocking |
| Tenon Cutter: | Stationary, changing heads, adjusting blades, safety, portable (Lee Valley), methods of use |
| Alternatives: | Hand cutting, chisels, hole saws, grinders |
| Antique Tools: | Hollow auger, spoke pointer, rounder |
| Holding: | Hands in gloves, vises, clamps, extensions, bungees, shaving horse and drawknife/spokeshave |
| Finishing: | Rationale(s). Grinders, dremel, sanders (random orbital, etc), sandpaper (grits, backings) |
| Specialised: | Arbortech Carvers |
Techniques:
| Construction: | Mortise/Tenon, Wedged Tenons |
| Mechanicals: | Rationale, screws, (trims, timberloks...) |
| Chemical: Glues | Varieties, conditions for use |
| Alternative Joinery: | Gravity, wire string, wax, Velcro |
| Bark Applique | handling, adhesion, trimming, finish |
| Finishing | Oils, stains, lye, vinegar, Sealers: oils, water-based, wipe-ons, Waxing |
| Woods | Identifying, Acquiring, Harvesting, Peeling, Storing Drying and Kilns and Bugs |
| Country Woodworking: | Froe, Hatchet, Drawknife, Spoke Shave shaving Horse |
| Seating | Seat Weaving, Upholstery |
| Tricks & Tips | markers, paints, plugs, dirt, acorns, leveling legs |
A man’s work is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened. – Albert Camus
| Menu of Possible Projects | Time to allow |
| Trophy chair, about 12” high | 4-6 hrs |
| Simple Bench with 1 ¼” mortise and tenon joints | 4 hrs |
| Imaginal, Ephemeral and Sculptural Objects, “Smalls” Toys, Site Work, done and left in the woods, Willow Deer, Peach Pit Work, Yard Scampers | 10 minutes to a lifetime |
| Counter Stool, driftwood legs | 8 hrs |
| Child’s arm chair, about 22” high | 6 hrs |
| Adult arm/side chair | 10-12 hours |
| Headboard | 3 hrs |
| Table structure: | 4-6 hrs |
| Garden Structures or Furniture | 3 hrs+ |
| White Birch Bark over purchased casework | 2 hrs+ |
FOR SALE: Books, Birch Bark, old and new tools
Discussion concepts and terms:
Ways to Think about Rustic:
Geometry/nature, order/chaos, mater/pater, understructure/over structure, copy another piece.
Start from intuition: texture, size, material, technique... what wants to speak through you?
Related Topics:
Wabi-sabi, moodling, The Imagination: Mythic, Alchemical, Archetypal punctum/ “feeling in” Home Altars Politics of Organic Model. Green Man./Al Khdir and the Technical Model
Nature-Time-Patience are 3 great healers
Human nature loves heartily well-balanced irregularity and longs for it in life, in character, and in almost everything else – Calvert Vaux, Villa and Cottage Architecture 1864, (1991 Dover Reprint)
“Other” Activities/Exercises to honor the “other” workshop
- Be Alert to moods, coincidences, annoyances, animals, insects, weather, sleep
- Tree Id/Woods Walks
- Watching people
- Looking at Slides and Videos
- Build a Hut
- Collecting Materials
- Read Design Books
- Field Trips
- Visiting Sawmills
- Drawing
- Haiku/Senru Poetry
- Mud Painting
- Gift for your least preferred s’elf (your embarrassment, addiction, weakness)
- Dancing with Sticks
- Utensils
- Kinetics
- found/arranged
- Gifts for Others
- “Smalls” and Toys
- Land-Based Arrangement
- Objects reflecting various techniques/materials
- Collaborate, Assist, Be Assisted
- www.woodlanders.com
- www.rusticfurnituremakers.com
For workshops at Dan's Warwick studio
Where to Stay??
Warwick Motel, 5 minutes away: 845 986 4822. Ask for special Workshop rate... Or the Holiday Inn Express, Chester, NY, 20 minutes away: 845 469 3000.
Warwick, NY’s Points of Rustic Interest for Possible Side Trips
Within 20 minutes:
- Appalachian Trail/6000 yr old quarry
- A few massive ancient trees deep in the woods
- Black Dirt farming region
- Sugarloaf, NY, “Village of Craftspeople”
- Pacem in Terris Meditation Center, Bamboo Grove to cut in
- Bowling Alley/Drive In Theater
- Chestnut Log Homes in Greenwood Lake, NY (from 1950s)
- Unusual Saw mills, Florida, NY, and Sugarloaf, NY
40 minutes:
- Storm King Art Center has an exceptional collection of outdoor sculptures + Andy Goldsworthy
- Dia Art Center, Beacon, NY: exceptional modern art in a 240,000 sq ft facility
- Bear Mt Inn: where Dan has installed several benches at Hessian Lake
80 minutes:
- New York City
- Dan’s Dutchess County Studio in Wingdale, NY, at Webatuck Village