I have been making furniture with period style hand-tools since 1980. I began by making chairs, first taking a class with John Alexander at Drew Langsner’s Country Workshops. Over the years, working with both Drew and John, I concentrated on hand tools exclusively.
A few years later, John introduced me to joinery - the furniture made and used in New England in the seventeenth century. Working closely with curators and collectors, we have been fortunate to have studied in detail many examples of period work. Our practices in our workshops have helped to re-discover the methods of seventeenth-century joiners.
Since 1994 I have been the joiner at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Ma. My responsibilities there include making the reproduction furniture used on some of the museum’s sites.
Several research trips to England have served to broaden my understanding of the joiner’s trade in that period. My reproduction work relies heavily on the reference materials collected both in England and this country.
Examples of my work are featured in museum and private collections, as well as the cover feature in the magazine Woodwork in June, 2005.
