7th Annual Vermont Fine Furniture and Woodworking Show

Opens tomorrow ... Once again, it's time for the Woodstock Vermont VWMA furniture show. I have participated in it for a number of years and this year we have several new pieces we are showing there. I wrote about getting started on them last Sunday, at which point we had barely begun, but we managed to get it all together (see photos below) and I dropped them all off at the show today. It looks like it will be another good one. I don't have my own booth, but instead, we're exhibiting in the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers booth, same as other years. Also this year, Cabot Cheese and the VWMA are sponsoring a booth, "Best of Vermont Showcase" by Lisa Laberge Interiors. Lisa has our walnut table and chairs there, our skinny console and a small side table from our Bethlehem Steel series. She has a good eye and has put together a nice 'room' full of stuff. Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
Lisa's summary of her philosophy for the booth.
Not finished yet, but shaping up ... Still needs some Miranda Thomas pottery and a piece from Charley Shackleton ... good stuff at that link ... check it out ...
The Guild booth in process...Lots to see there.
There are other local furniture makers who have their own booths there like Bill Laberge (Lisa's husband), Chris Bowlen and Bob Gasperetti ... Sam and I are going to an 'iron pour' at the Salem Art Works tomorrow, but we plan to be at the Woodstock show most of the day Sunday, talking to show visitors about our work. See you there I hope ...
Chris Bowlen Custom Woodworking ... you can see some of Sam's metalwork in Chris's booth .. and Bill's booth .. almost ready to go ...

Upcoming Shows, Under Control

Well, we 'got 'er done' ... Three new pieces this week, in time for the show tomorrow. This 'Skinny Console' started out as a shop joke. The top is made from two bookmatched edge scraps from the English Elm oval table that we made earlier in the summer. They were too nice to cut up for kindling and I waved them around for a while until I finally glued them up ... I mocked up a plywood prototype base and the rest, as they say, was history ...
We can see many places where a table similar to this could be just the right accent piece ... use your imagination ...
Ahhhh ... 'Dancer #1' ... welded steel by Sam ... locust by Dan and Trevor ... Artfully arranged pieces that were also 'too good to throw away'.
the concept on the board ...
the critical eye ... the base is a rough cut locust slab and the steel is unfinished so this sculpture is good to go, inside or out ..
The finished bench ... I kept trying to add stuff to the base, but, in the end, less is more as Meis, I think said. Hand hewn chestnut from a sleeper log, also good to go inside or out ...
red was the 'wrong' color for this one
nixed the bridge like elements
too fussy for a rough thing ... all for now ... fun stuff in person, all of it ....

Upcoming Shows

Couple things coming up ... Next weekend, again, in Woodstock is the Seventh Annual Vermont Fine Furniture and Woodworking Festival . I won't be having my own booth, but Lisa Laberge, of Lisa Laberge Interiors will be using a dining table and chairs of ours for her booth 'Out of the Modern Woods'. She's creating a 10 x 20 'room' decorated with all Vermont made furniture and might also have room for my 'skinny console', a new piece we're working on that should be finished this week sometime ... The top is ready to finish and Sam's welding up the base tomorrow .... We'll also have a new steel and wood sculpture there in the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers booth. (the Guild has a pretty slick new website at that link ... check it out) Haven't started that piece yet but we have it figured out and hey, nothing focuses the mind like a fast approaching deadline.

Also in the last minute department, this week we'll be reworking a prototype bench Sam and I made last summer, for an upcoming show at the Southern Vermont Art Center. We had some furniture there this spring and they invited us to place a bench in one of the galleries for the upcoming fall shows that open October 1st. I worked on the bench for a couple hours this morning and I think I have that one figured out too ... I've got four days to get it all together ... I'll keep you posted ....
as it is now
first attempt
thinner verticals, bigger circle piece
photoshopped in the back set ...
the skinny console again

Alleviating Social Media Fears

Bill LaBerge and I attended the quarterly meeting of the Vermont Wood Manufacturers Association Friday.. It started at The Brandon Inn with the business meeting in the morning. From there we adjourned to the former Brandon training center for a tour of the design center and new woodshop of The McKernon Group, longtime luxury home builders in the area ... It was a very impressive facility and the people we met there were very friendly and informative ... They fed us a nice lunch and set us up for the real reason I went to the meeting.

The afternoon session featured a presentation by Rachel Carter, who owns a public relations firm in Charlotte, Vermont. Rachel's mission is to provide Vermont businesses with "individualized public relations programs encompassing the power of social media and the ingenuity of grassroots marketing." It was, overall, a fascinating and well done presentation. She started with the basics, LinkedIn and Facebook, and went on to cover things like blogging, search engines, free online listing and analysis sites and Twitter, the micro blogging site. I've resisted some of this stuff so far, but after listening to Rachel, I think I will sloooowly integrate as much of it as I can into my
online marketing program and see how it goes ... All it seems to take is time and some interest in the process. I already have a blog. I'm already personally on Facebook and I've had some fun with both of those ... LinkedIn ... I can do that ... Twitter??? The thought makes me kind of cringe a little, but I'll check it out and see what's up with that. Who knows. I think Bill Gates is Twittering now. My first computer had a 40 MB hard drive and cost $3500. We've come a long way from there ... Onward ...