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FURNITURE STUDIO ~ The Heart of the Functional Arts
Edited by John Kelsey and Rick Mastelli
Published by The Furniture Society, 1999
Bob Erickson lives and works on a homestead in Northern California remote enough to require a generator to produce his electricity. It is a lovely spot, graced by a house, shop, solar wood kiln, and other amenities Erickson and his wife, Liese Greensfelder, and various friends have built from scratch over the past twenty-five years. Each year Erickson and five assistants produce about 100 pieces, 90 of them comfortable, handsome chairs.
It isn’t difficult to get caught up in the romance of the surroundings, or to assume from them that Erickson’s woodworking is a counter-cultural dream come true. Some months ago, Erickson found himself at a dinner in Berkeley for Wendell Berry, farmer, poet, philosopher, and advocate of small-scale, low-tech local enterprise. "My work fulfills some of Berry's ideals, Erickson told me, "the scale and hands-on connection with materials, for example. But not others. We couldn't survive selling chairs locally. My market is national. My business depends on the interstate system to get me to shows all around the country and then to deliver the orders those shows generate."
Erickson is a thoughtful, low-key fellow so the scale of his enterprise came as something of a surprise to me. The six to eight shows he does a year take him to places like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, San Francisco, and Evanston, IL. Each show requires at least a week's effort, including preparation, shipping, travel, and manning the booth, and costs $3,000 to $5,000 in out-of-pocket expenses. Five employees, $20,000 to $40,000 dollars in marketing and promotion expenses -- this, it seems to me, is serious business.
But it isn't business that Erickson talks about in response to my woodworking urge. He's been treated, successfully, for cancer during the past year, and he talks of how important woodworking has been to his recovery. After all these years he's still enthusiastic, still discovers new things in the work. He finds satisfaction in providing pleasant surroundings and fulfilling work for his employees, who work flexible hours that allow them to pursue other interests. His interests extend well beyond woodworking, and he isn't given to intellectualizing about design. "Woodworking is an honest way to make a living, and it does have political aspects for us old counter-culture folks, " he says. "It's still a satisfying process, one that I can find interest in and feel good about at the end of the day."
So, what have I learned? Craft woodworking has undergone a remarkable development and maturation over the past thirty years, expanding its horizons and, it seems, the number of makers plying the trade. It is encouraging to see so much good work …
Reprinted with permission from Roger Holmes and The Furniture Society (www.furnituresociety.org), copyright Roger Holmes 1999.
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