We’ve been invited to a showing at the Artisan Gallery in Sacramento. Please come if you can. We will have most of our pieces on the floor, along with the work of several other talented artists. The gallery has a café located inside and there will also be live music for your listening pleasure while you browse. Here are the details:

• Larry Stark, jeweler
• Ron Busselen, photographer
• Robert Howard, woodworker
• Jesse Stark, painter

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Artisan Gallery in the Artisan Building
1901 Del Paso Blvd.
Sacramento, CA

6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

With a slowdown in commissions comes an opportunity to get caught up with show pieces, tool tune-ups, and general back-burner projects. It is easy to blame the economy for slowdowns, but in over 30 years of work, there have always been ups and downs. It is time to reflect on positives and negatives; to re-group and re-energize. This time cannot be misused.

The place is buzzing with enthusiasm. Eric and I are designing an all new line of modern furniture that will be launched on its own website. Original designs made for batch production. We’ll sell right off the website and ship to your door. The prices will be attractive and the process streamlined relative to custom made. As an addition, it’s great to have a wider offering. We’ll continue to make commission work as well as art furniture. Preparing enough pieces to get a booth full for showing takes some time, and we don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet. Stay tuned!

The panels connecting the posts and the door/drawer faces have been widebelt sanded for uniform thickness. Putting the island together reveals a knotty, little wrinkle to contend with in the design process. The bottom of the panel rails are scalloped. This design has inset seating areas which create an odd transition between panels. The card board shows the scalloped edges that overlap. Sometimes unforeseen elements encourage alternative thinking to remedy the rough spots.

A very straightforward piece, but a 5′ x 9′ island will be a great gathering place in its new home.

First, the carving of the Lord Baltimore is the fifth and quite likely the final piece in a nature series of cabinets. This will be painted but because of the delicacy of the leaves and petals, the wood choice is hardrock maple. Slow going, but it holds up well.

The next piece is a round table… well, three tables that form a drum. These can be rearranged into different footprints depending on the space available.

The third piece is a settee. The basic frame holds the bent laminations of seat/back support staves. Originally, the piece was designed as a chair, but as it’s developing, it seemed more casual.

The completed office set of matching computer desk and writing desk. The pair offers different functions with the same detailing, and matching veneers were part of the requirements.

Several thicknesses of solid walnut were used: ⁴⁄₄, ⁸⁄₄, ¹²⁄₄, ¹⁶⁄₄. We used both manufactured plywood and custom-veneered plywood made in the shop with figured, raw veneer. All of these elements are part of what makes custom furniture making so fun and unique; designing and building a piece with an individual in mind. This is one of our latest commissions to be completed.

The fourth piece in our accent line is complete. Rustic and relaxed, the ‘09 Cab is a snapshot of our local winery culture. El Dorado county is recognized as an American Viticultural Area and we felt the urge to pay homage to the wonderful sights of expansive vineyards and their delectable tastes.

More views and information in the gallery.

I’ve begun work on the fifth and probably final piece in our accent line. Using the same case shape, this piece will feature hand-carved hibiscus flowers. Alder frames bisect the carvings and each carved pane is maple for extra resilience.

We’ve had the Lord Baltimore hibiscus flowers in our garden for a few years now. They bloom with gorgeous 10-inch flowers that usually last for just a single day. I wanted to capture that momentary beauty forever in this piece.

The original drawing was exploded to full size and transferred to each pane. A small router was used to waste the majority of the panes, leaving a clear outline of the flowers. The plan is a jet black finish on the body and frame, with vibrant greens for the stem and striking red and yellow on the petals/stamen.

Occasionally I like to step away from furniture making. This departure, simply called ‘Rainbow,’ was dreamt up, drawn up and started to get roughed out longer ago than i care to remember. I kept this covered and protected for many years until the time was right to complete the handwork. The betta (Siamese fighting fish) has such fluid and graceful movement, swimming in the ribbons of stylized eelgrass. Hanging on the wall, a soothing aquarium comes to mind. I originally intended to paint the fish with iridescent colors. With this beautiful piece of Honduras mahogany, at nearly two feet wide, it may very well remain clear. Now presentable with the handwork complete and clear finish on, we’ll hang it and study it.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank and introduce my computer guru. Please meet my youngest son, Eric. He is responsible for all things technology at Robert Howard Studios. From website creation to postcard design/layout to integrating software with our CNC router, he makes it possible for you to read this and see into our shop. Thanks Eric, for helping me to be a better woodworker.

For the next accent piece design we are taking the grape motif from the the gate and applying it in a smaller scale. We had the opportunity to purchase a small (2′ x 2′) CNC machine nearly ten years ago which has made this project much more approachable. By taking a 3D file and computing it, we are able to generate a toolpath file that tells our machine what to carve. My son (with the majority of the computing skills) imports, scales, tweaks and renders the CNC files for routing.

The first few passes are very rough. We use a ¾” ball nose bit to gouge out most of the pine, which is soft enough to handle that much removal. The toolpath calculates the shape of the router bit and the depth of the file to cut out just the negative space. When completed, the rough pass barely resembles what our final shape will look like.

The final pass is made with a ⅛” bit and takes much longer. This particular file ran in just about four hours. There is a vacuum hose attached to catch some of the debris. After the the file is run the board need to be ripped down and cleaned. The CNC leaves a little bit of work to do, mainly the small lines from each pass need to be sanded down.