Let’s go visit a typical woodworking shop. It’s a two car garage in a residential neighborhood. Here we find a woodworker (let’s call him Jack) working away on another personal project. Looks like an ambitious one this time – a set of eight Arts and Crafts style dinning room chairs. He’s using some very nice quarter sawn White Oak. Jack is doing a fine a job. The joints look good, the pieces are milled perfectly, and the angled back rails are spot on.
As we strike up a conversation with Jack, we find out he’s using some published plans to make the chairs. They look like good plans. They’ve taken him this far at least. When we ask Jack why he didn’t design the chairs on his own, he gives us a funny look.
“Why would I do that and risk having them turn out ugly? Worse yet, what if the design was all wrong and the chairs failed? I’ll play it safe and use someone else’s plans.”
Sound familiar? It does to me. In the beginning, I wouldn’t build anything unless I had plans for it. I didn’t have the confidence to attempt designing my own work. Fear of failure came in to play as well. I was afraid of designing something ugly, or maybe it wouldn’t be structurally sound. Let someone else do the design work, and I’ll just build it from their plans.
I’m not harping on published plans. Using them is a terrific way to get familiar with the processes of woodworking and to build confidence along side a piece of furniture. However, a lot of woodworkers get stuck here. They never move past working from others plans, or if they do (and this is even worse) all of their “original” designs look just like everyone else’s originals.
If that’s you, there’s hope. It’s easy to get stuck in your cushy design zone, but with a few minor adjustments in thought and practice, you’ll quickly step out and be on your way to greater design success.
Realize there’s nothing new under the sun.
Design is borrowed from, well…other design. No matter how original a piece or style may seem, it came from a source of borrowed inspiration, whether it was nature, architecture, another piece of furniture, or even music. This is a good thing. It means you have a seemingly limitless archive of design resources to borrow from. This way you don’t put pressure on yourself to develop something new, ground-breaking, or dare I say – revolutionary. The idea is to have the end result simply be about who you are as a woodworker.
Start a picture file on your computer of all your sources of inspiration. If you see something that sparks your interest, grab it and come back later to examine why it inspires you. Take the time to analyze any details that really stand out to you and start sketching to see how you can incorporate those details in to your own work.
Stop copying and start adapting.
True originality in furniture design is all about how your inspirations are fleshed out. The key is to take what you know and learn to repurpose it into your own expression of style. In order to do this, though, you have to stop copying the design elements, and start adapting them. Change them up a bit to reflect your ideals and philosophies of what furniture design should be. Borrow them, and then make them your own.
Pick one design element that really speaks to you from someone else’s work. Now, with your sketchbook open, draw as many variations of that detail as you can come up with. The idea is to see what you would do with that design element if you had thought of it first. Make it your own.
As hard as it is to take, feedback and criticism are your allies.
The hardest part of my woodworking education were the group critiques. Everyone in the whole school would gather round and pick each other’s work apart. I always felt as if I had to defend my work, because clearly everyone was attacking it, right? Wrong.
Later on when I had my own shop, I really began to miss those critiques. I missed the feedback and interaction with people who had common goals but different perspectives. I began to see that no one was ever attacking my work. They were offering suggestions and presenting alternative perspectives that could really open my mind up further to greater success in my designs.
As hard as it is to take, criticism and critiques are necessary for growth as a woodworker. You need other viewpoints and perspectives to help move you from your cushy design zone. The best way to approach any critique is with an open and understanding mind. No one is there to rip you apart. People are there to help you and offer suggestions from experience. It’s like free schooling.
So, get a neighbor or family member to offer their viewpoint. Better yet, post pictures on a forum or Twitter for instant feedback and advice. It can be scary at first, but it’s an essential part of learning to do your best work.
Peter left a great suggestion in the comments about this one. He suggests sharing the initial designs on Twitter, forums, email, etc. That way you get insight before ever building the piece. Especially if you seek out people who work in different styles than you do.
Like everything worth doing, developing your designs is a process that takes time, patience, and effort. Also, it takes courage to step out and try something unproven to you. There is a lot of self-imposed fear when heading down this path, but if you don’t start stretching your limits in woodworking, you will never leave your comfort zone, and never see how far you can truly go.
Are you content as a big fat copycat, or are you striving for a personal expression in your design work?
Let’s keep the conversation going.
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This is a great post, Adam. I run across this kind of mindset pretty regularly. In some ways, I think this related to our previous conversations about whether or not there are distinctions among artists, craftsmen, designers, etc. I think some people just really like the craft aspect of woodworking. They are content – or inspired – to make a perfect joint. And the best expression they know of this is to make a reproduction of a Stickley table, and they don’t have any interest in creating their own designs. I suppose I don’t see anything wrong with this, though I obviously subscribe more to the idea of your post to push things further.
The other thing I would add is that, as someone such as yourself, I don’t have the luxury of classroom-based critiques, share your drawings with friends, family members, other designers and artists, etc., even before you physically make something. Asking for perspectives from people who do things a lot different than you, or even have a different style than you, can really strengthen your own work, and open you up to ideas you weren’t aware of yet.
Now, I need to get you on the phone to talk about a couple design issues, or maybe I should just post them here…?
Keep up the good work!
Great post Adam. As you know my work is influenced by George Nakashima, I’m a live edge addict. Anyway I try to expand from what I am influenced by and create my own design. I think many are hesitant to trust in their abilities and simply recreate what they see figuring it will be an automatic success. Now, is this because of fear for exploring new design or lack of time and creativity? Many woodworkers are talented but lack creativity, or so they think. Truth is, we are all creative but we just need to find a way to tap into that creativity. This may be where the issue of time comes in.
Interesting topic. It would be great to hear from someone who builds only from plans. Is this for comfort of knowing the outcome or to get you directly to working on the project?
Twitter: Torch02
December 3, 2009 at 4:19 pm
In my short time blogging about my short time woodworking, I’ve struggled with how to be more interactive with other woodworking bloggers other woodworkers online. I even went through an exercise of attempting to comment on every single post of the woodworking blogs I followed for a month.
The best method I’ve found for interacting online with other woodworkers is to ask questions. While I often appreciate designs and techniques that others share, I make a concerted effort to not just comment “Wow, I like that” but rather ask about a detail about the design/technique – “What if you put X there?” or “Why did you approach it X way instead of Y way?” Making that kind of effort can shift blogging from a publication platform into an interactive platform.
I know that I’ve benefitted from reading and interacting on a couple of blogs. In a couple of instances, comments by the blog owner have suggested the feeling was mutual. Digital cameras, scanners, and tools like SketchUp all enable the kind of interaction and feedback you’re talking about. We, as “online” woodworkers, just need to be dilligent to use the tools that are available to us to these ends.
Enjoyed your post and have a couple of comments to toss out. The craft of woodworking itself can be technically very demanding and my thought is that many woodworkers do not feel comfortable delving into design until they have mastered a basic skill set. I’m sure in the traditional apprenticeship setting, flexing the design wings didn’t occure until the young blood cut armies of dovetails, and planed oceans of timber. In my own case I’ve seen a progression from following plans, to tweeking plans, to combining two or three pieces, to building from scratch, to now actually building without rulers or tape measure. Didn’t get there overnight, a late bloomer I guess. I’d comment also that there can be great value in doing serious reproduction work. I know many look down their noses at reproductions as being totally un-original. Somehow we don’t often say that when an orchestra performs a wonderful rendition of a classic. Or forget that our creative legacy in painting and sculpture used to depend on copying the works of masters in order to learn light shadow etc. I am interested in the concept of using the web to get feedback on work. I’m fairly certain that many of the great masterworks of early american design were the result of many small tweeks and changes, helped along by a large community of artisans with a solid grasp of design. That’s tough to find if you are outside of a school setting.
George Walker
Hi from across the seas.
I have been saving pictures to a file and then building on them in my sketch book for at least 18 months but have keep this fact quiet as I was a bit afraid about what people would say. The pictures that I have built on have taken me in new direction and often a picture of chair as turned in to cabinet or a table then back to a chair that has in no way looks like it can from the original.
Your site is great and I would love to share my journey in woodworking and were it as taken me.
Keep it up
Nigel
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