Observations from the Woodshop

THE MEANDERING CHAIR

 

Our Journey Begins

          I’ve always enjoyed meandering around.  I’ve never been one to conform to the straight and narrow path. Interstates bore me. Family trips were often plotted along secondary roads, which sometimes took twice as long, and often provoked family mutinies, but also led to a number of interesting sites and experiences.
The kids are grown now, and my wife is not always anxious to get back in the car after a long week of commuting, so I have decided to take an alternative companion-a “Meander” chair- on some side trips. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing our adventures with you.

Our Story Begins: An Evening with Bill and Patti

   The first trip with the chair was to visit some neighbors for a lovely summer supper. These folks live a ways, “off the hard road” and the drive includes crossing  a bridge that my wife finds rather scary. Their house lies in a meadow near the end of the road. Bill and Patti have built what looks like a regional vegetable jail to protect their garden from the deer and rabbits. Here we see Patti in the garden,  relaxing in the chair, surrounded by lillies, tomatoes and basil. The chair also inspired them to reenact Bill’s marriage proposal.

    Patti is a ceramic artist and art instructor and we see her work outside in the form of unique bird baths and inside in the form of vases, plates, and bowls, that add an elegant touch to the meal. Patti sometimes processes native West Virginia clay in her rural studio. View some of her art at; http://traceforkpottery.org/. She’s also in the process of creating a production line that we are looking forward to seeing in it’s finished form.

IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

I’ve been writing this blog off and on now for a few months, and really don’t have much sense as to how many people ever read it. I get a fair number of responses from places trying to sell pharmaceuticals. [go figure].  Wrote one a few weeks ago about a show I did that sucked, and I got more responses to that than any I have written. Some of the sentiment to that one was that I needed to lighten up.  Well this post isn’t going to be light.  [you know, I think I just had a revelation. I never have liked anything lite. Lite beer, lite rock, whatever. Just ain't me.] Anyway, I am presently contemplating the possibility of going out of business. It’s not really my choice. Times are tough for this business, and have been for almost 2 years now. I’ve been doing this for 30 years  and have been through tough times before. I’ve always thought that we would find a way to ride them out, and in the past we have.  This time is just starting to feel different. The customers just haven’t started coming back and I’m beginning to wonder if they ever will.  Like I said, this is really not  by choice.  Being a furniture maker and designer is a huge part of who I am and it’s not like I can just jump into some other line of work easily. I always wanted to do what I do and really I would like to do it for a few more years. The thing is, this is a two way street and requires participation from people that are willing  and hopefully eager, to purchase what we do. It’s also hard not to take this personally. What am I doing wrong kind of thing. All I know is that I can’t afford to do this as a hobby and we can only hold on for so long at this level of business. I’m still hoping that things will turn around. Soon, I hope.

Vietnamese Furniture

    Did I get your attention? As of a December of 2007 study I am reading, Vietnam is the third largest exporter of wood household furniture to the United States.  Fifty five percent of wood household furniture sold in this country is now imported.  Sucks for me, my business, and my employees.  I’m spending alot of time these days trying to figure out how to sell the furniture we make. Times are tough.
      According to this study, consumers are spending less on furniture. They are looking for stuff that looks good, but don’t really care if it is going to last long enough to pass on to their children.  They are spending less on furniture and more on electronic gadgets, home entertainment, travel, and leisure products.
        So the larger manufacturers are closing their operations here and choosing to have their furniture made in low-cost countries like Viet Nam. Not really an option for us. We need to find those folks that do care that their furniture is not only going to last more than a few years, but hopefully for a generation or two.  I’ve also been thinking lately how my operation fits into the “green” movement. Well, one thing is the durability issue.  A piece of furniture that doesn’t have to be replaced every few years is definitely more green that that imported stuff that will need to be replaced every few years.  We are using materials that primarily come from our region.  We also utilize a fair number of veneers in our work that means some of the best logs go alot further than they would otherwise.  
       So what I am really struggling with at the moment is how to connect with those of you that do realize that good quality, well designed furniture is a good investment. That it is worth it to spend a little more on work that isn’t going to need to be replaced in a few years. That it is responsible to purchase work  that in it’s production has less of an impact on our planet, and that in doing so you are supporting the livelihoods of workers right here rather than contributing to the exploitation of workers in third world countries.  I know you’re out there.

Camp Lake View

      I’m involved with this great project in Lincoln Co. that not enough people know about.  It’s a youth camp called Camp Lakeview, situated on the left fork of Mud River Lake.  As you can see from some of the photos I have included here, it is a beautiful spot.  I, and a few other volunteers have been working on this project for a number of years now.  So far, we have managed to have the property graded in preparation of buildings and recreation areas. We have built a floating pier and swimming enclosure, a rustic cabin, a caretakers home, and a picnic shelter.  Now we are to the hard part, designing and building dormitories and a dining hall, and coming up with the funding to get this done. This is where we could use some help.
      Camp Lakeview is and can be a truly unique facility for not just Lincoln County but for this entire region.  It will provide activities for young people that include, swimming, canoeing, kayaking, and fishing. We also have plans to use this as an educational facility with an emphasis on our environment and ecspecially how we interact with our water resources. In this vein, it is also our intent to utilize the latest in “green” building technology in the construction of our buildings and use them as a show piece of what can be done.
       So, if any of these areas interest you, come get involved. You don’t have to be an expert, just bring your energy. The rewards will last a lifetime.
      Community meeting, Tuesday, May 25th in the Hamlin Community center basement.

Can Two Country Boys Make It In the Big City?

Well, at this juncture the answer is apparently not. Here’s the long and the short of it. I received a call asking if I would be interested in doing a furniture and furnishings show in Baltimore, by a promoter that I have done shows with in the past. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I had new product I wanted to show, [my "Meander collection"], I have friends I could stay with in Baltimore, and save a hotel bill, and I was able to talk my friend Jeff Fetty, [ a renowned blacksmith ] into doing the show with me, and sharing the cost. Sounds good. Let’s do it. Problem #1, I had forgotten how much work these things are. First there’s all the planning. What to show, how to lay out the exhibit etc. Then we had to build work to exhibit at the show. That ended up being weeks of work and thousands of dollars in expense.  Then we had to get there. My work in a borrowed trailer that I had to modify my truck to be able to have lights so that I could pull it 2 hours to Jeff’s shop so that we could then transfer the trailer to Jeff’s van for the trip to Baltimore.  We left a day ahead so that we could be at the show early to set up our booth. So to recap, we left on Thursday, to be there early on Friday to set up for a Saturday, Sunday show.  So we get to the show and it is something like seven steps up into the building from the street. Did I mention that Jeff and I are both on the backside of 50? My furniture is heavy. His stuff is made out of iron and steel. We got there at 9:00 am and were finally set up at 6:30 that evening. Let me tell you we were a couple of tired old farts by then. Then we had to figure out what to do with our van and trailer which nobody in downtown Baltimore seemed interested in helping us find a place to park for the weekend. So it was off to the suburbs and my friends house, hoping we could find a place to leave it there. But our display looked great and we had a great dinner at my friends and started the next day off with high hopes of a successful weekend.
      What if you give a party and no one comes? The show was painful. Attendence was abysmal. There were so few people in attendence that if we saw someone in the vicinity of our booth, that wasn’t wearing an exhibitors badge, we were practically going out a dragging them in. I started feeling sorry for them. I mean it’s one thing to not do a lot of selling but it’s really painful to not have anyone to even show your work to.  So then, after a completely miserable show, we still had to tear down our booth and load everything back up for the trip home. Being the two old farts that we are at this point, we were the last ones down and out of there, and we were exhausted. We got about an hour down the road, and got some food and a motel for the night, hoping that things would at least look brighter tomorrow as we had home to look forward to.
         Things were going just fine the next day until, going up a mountain outside of Morgantown West Virginia, the transmission on Jeff’s van decided that it had had enough.  We were in the slow truck lane, which was good, as we had completely lost any form of movement other than the possibility of rolling backwards down the mountain. It was pouring rain, and there was not even a shoulder to pull off onto, even if we had been able to.  Luckily, a wrecker spotted us and was able to get to us before we were demolished by any truckers unable to avoid us, and for a tidy sum, hauled us part way to Jeff’s shop, where we stopped and waited for a buddy of Jeff’s to come get us while we enjoyed the worst lunch of Mexican food either of us have ever had. 
       So, I did finally make it back. The show itself consumed five days of my life, that I will never get back. I hadn’t done any shows in almost five years. I hate to think that this one may have been my last?

A New Direction

From time to time, over the past few years, I have been messing around with some small sculptural pieces. The first ones I did were a combination of wood and stained glass and as much as anything I would say they are an exploration of form, which as a designer, is something that I have a fascination with. As  matter of fact, the first sculptural piece I did, “Blue Highway”, ended up being the inspiration for my “Meander” line of  furniture. My latest pieces are exercises in form as well, but they are also incorporating experiments in color and texture. What I am doing is, creating a form, dyeing the wood, and then carving the dyed areas so that the original wood color underneath is revealed. This creates the contrast in color as well as the texture. The last part of the equation is the musical influence. When I get to the carving portion of the work, I put on my headphones, and put on some music that I can lose myself in and hopefully find myself inspired by.

Lately, I have been listening to a number of artists from West Africa. There are times when this works amazingly well  and I find that I don’t really have a sense of the carving that has been done until I stand back and study it.  It’s the same thing that I have learned from improvising music. Sometimes you just have to let yourself go, and open yourself to the influences around you.  I’m having alot of fun with this. The images are of some of the pieces I’ve done so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October seventh 2008

 

Continue Reading…

New Pieces

Sometimes it works out that pieces I design for a particular customer come out so nicely that we end up adding them to one of our collections.  We are just finishing up some furniture for a law office in Charleston, West Virginia, and as part of that project we did two desks that I am very happy with, and though I may make some slight changes in them I think that they are going to end up being added to our “Meander” line of work.

Executive desk 84″ wide x 36″ deep x 30″ tall in walnut and butternut

Computer Desk 72″ wide x 24″ deep x 30″ tall in walnut and butternut

See ya Later

Re: Emma Gets a Real Job

By Emma Austin

I thought I was going to run out of here, waving as I went, leaving a trail of sawdust behind.  I mean, this was certainly never my dream job…I really did get named “Worst Employee Ever”.  I won’t deny that.  Plus, with our German lineage, I didn’t think we did this sad, talk about our feelings kind of stuff.  However, I am sad to leave.  I have really enjoyed working for my Dad.  I have enjoyed designing marketing materials and discovering skills I didn’t know I had.  (Although I still don’t think I have created anything special.)  I also enjoyed our little moments of collaboration, even though some of them really didn’t get us anywhere.  Most of all, though, I enjoyed all of the fun we have had in the office.  My Dad and I have spent a lot of time laughing- laughing at the fact that I can be a really terrible employee, laughing at his extreme lack of computer skills, and laughing at the weird things we discovered on the internet when we really should have been working.  This job was a learning experience, it was a great opportunity to spend time with my Dad, and it was a lot of fun.  I can say that there are a lot of things I won’t miss about working at Probst Furniture Makers, but I will miss working for my Dad. 

But, hey, I do live kind of close by, so if you ever have a computer problem, or find a really funny video, just give me a call.  If not, I will at least see you at Christmas. 

Dad, thanks for putting up with me, thanks for all of the opportunities, and thanks for all the fun.  I love you.

And, in the words of Eddie Austin, “Welp, see ya later!”

Emma Gets a real Job

It’s hard to keep this from being personal. I mean when it comes right down to it, this is a personal business. That last few days I have been getting nostalgic, and a bit sad. My daughter Emma, after six years of college has landed a real job in the local school system as a speech therapist, which means that she will no longer need her part time job here.
I don’t remember exactly when Emma started working here, but I do know that it didn’t get off to a great start. She needed summer work, and I thought I could find something for her to do here. Problem was, I really didn’t know what that something might be, and when it came right down to it, she really didn’t have any skills that we could use here. So, I put her to work cleaning, doing a little work on the books, and sometimes some oiling of furniture parts. Thing was, she really wasn’t much enjoying the jobs I found for her, and even sometimes refused to try particular tasks. At one point that first summer I awarded her with the “Worst Employee of Probst Furniture Ever”, which if you knew some of the employees I’ve had over the years, is pretty bad.
Funny thing is, we just hadn’t discovered Emma’s talents. We started working together on materials for our marketing, brochures, postcards, catalogs, and the like, and discovered that Emma was really quite good at this. She is artistic, writes well, and has a good sense of layout and composition. She designed two catalogs for me, and I don’t know how many times I have been asked as to who designed them, with the person asking being surprised that they weren’t done by a professional . At this point, she has done our catalogs, our new website, our newsletter, our blog, and several other smaller promotional pieces.
My getting sad though, has nothing to do with loosing Emma as an employee. There was a point when I realized that we worked pretty well together and that I valued and respected her input. I had a rare opportunity to work with my daughter as she grew from a child, to a talented, accomplished, adult, and it is something I will always treasure.
As a sort of postscript, it’s not like Emma is moving away. I mean she only lives like five minutes from here. The thing is, she just isn’t going to need this job anymore. Hopefully though, I will still be able to get her in here from time to time. The office may fall apart without her.