As our staff looked ahead to assembling this anniversary issue, I spent a lot of time looking back—paging slowly through Fine Woodworking’s early issues to take the pulse of the magazine when it was young; skipping around from decade to decade to find furniture that particularly impressed me in the articles where I had discovered it; reading stray bits at random that drew me in a second time.
All that looking back eventually impelled me to turn forward again and assemble an article filled with work by a range of woodworkers whose careers have launched in the last decade or two. I ended up identifying so much superb work that we’ve had to split the article in two; a second batch of makers will be featured in an issue later this year. It’s a delight to share work I so admire—and to know from experience that this is but the tip of the tip of the iceberg and that I’m likely to find more inspiring woodwork right behind the next workshop door.
The amazing woodworkers featured in our 50th issue #317
Alison Croney Moses
Álvaro Aramburu
Beatriz Zuazo
Germán Peraire
Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen
Dawson Moore
Justin Nelson
George Sawyer
The Future of Woodworking: George Sawyer
George Sawyer’s father, Dave, is a pivotal figure in the renaissance of green-wood and Windsor chairmaking. George’s company, Sawyer Made, has absorbed his father’s example but takes Windsors in a different direction. “I don’t know what the Shakers would think,” George says, “but I like it.”
The Future of Woodworking: Justin Nelson
When Justin Nelson started Fernweh Woodworking in Bend, Ore., in 2014, he was coming off four years in the Marine Corps and then a season on a Forest Service Hotshot crew fighting wildfires. A couple of years in, he was introduced to Sam Maloof’s work. “It boggled my mind,” he says. And it convinced him to turn his business toward furniture.
The Future of Woodworking: Dawson Moore
Dawson Moore was farming in Southern California when he happened to take a woodcarving class. From acanthus leaves and ball-and-claw feet, to flatwork cabinetmaking, Dawson was eager to learn. Then one day he read a blog about spoon carving. “I carved a spoon and was immediately hooked.”
The Future of Woodworking: Matte Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen
Danish furniture designers Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen create expressive table sculptures inspired by forms from nature: melting glaciers, icicles, and stalagmites, the face of the moon.
The Future of Woodworking: Germán Peraire
Peraire’s freestanding cabinet, with a locking tambour door that slides down from the top and rolls up in the base, is derived from a utilitarian file cabinet common in Europe in the 19th century.
The Future of Woodworking: Álvaro Aramburu
The seat of Aramburu’s bench features inlaid and stained patches of pine and spruce, randomly placed in a plank of Swedish pine. The legs and stretcher, also solid pine, are coated with milk paint.
The Future of Woodworking: Beatriz Zuazo
Zuazo has built a range of furniture but feels most at home making boxes and embellishing them with marquetry or parquetry. The marquetry designs, created with natural and dyed veneers using the double-bevel technique, were inspired by urban photographs taken in Mexico by Guillermo Rodriguez.
The Future of Woodworking: Alison Croney Moses
Working with multiple layers of veneer, Croney Moses deploys coopering and bent lamination to create shell and pod forms. An early breakthrough came when she realized you don’t have to close a coopered vessel; she’s been exercising that flexibility ever since.
Sign up for eletters today and get the latest techniques and how-to from Fine Woodworking, plus special offers.
