FREDDY ROMAN
Well-known member
Colonial Williamsburg and Fine Woodworking present the seventeenth annual Working Wood in the 18th Century conference: Desks: The Write Stuff. Projects and presentations will explore the design, construction, and evolution of 18th century desk forms.
Drawing primarily from the Colonial Williamsburg collection, the staff of the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop will demonstrate the re-creation of three desks that span the first three quarters of the 18th century. Bill Pavlak will reproduce an escritoire originally built by Edward Evans of Philadelphia in 1707 (the earliest known signed and dated piece from that city). Brian Weldy will illustrate the construction of a block front desk, that quintessential New England form, with a surprising history of manufacture in the Norfolk, Virginia area in the 1770s. As a comparison and contrast to this, Kaare Loftheim will walk attendees through a Norfolk desk and bookcase that shows the structural refinements more typical of urban English shops of the same period. To bring guests to the closing years of the century, featured presenter Robert Millard will explore the construction and decoration of one of John and Thomas Seymour’s iconic Lady’s Tambour Writing Desks. With these four desks participants will have an opportunity to consider changing approaches in Anglo-American case construction and design that run the gamut from typical to novel. Highlighting examples from our extensive collections, Tara Chicirda, Colonial Williamsburg’s curator of furniture, will kick off the conference by setting all of this in context.
In addition to these core presentations we have pulled together an impressive group of speakers and topics from the staff of Colonial Williamsburg: the construction of a desk on frame with joiner Ted Boscana, casting and engraving William and Mary hardware with master gunsmith George Suiter, a discussion of the recently discovered joiners shop of Luther Sampson in Duxbury, Massachusetts, with architectural historian Jeffrey Klee, and a dinner program with master carpenter Garland Wood on the recent construction of the massive armory complex including three workshop buildings.
Drawing primarily from the Colonial Williamsburg collection, the staff of the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop will demonstrate the re-creation of three desks that span the first three quarters of the 18th century. Bill Pavlak will reproduce an escritoire originally built by Edward Evans of Philadelphia in 1707 (the earliest known signed and dated piece from that city). Brian Weldy will illustrate the construction of a block front desk, that quintessential New England form, with a surprising history of manufacture in the Norfolk, Virginia area in the 1770s. As a comparison and contrast to this, Kaare Loftheim will walk attendees through a Norfolk desk and bookcase that shows the structural refinements more typical of urban English shops of the same period. To bring guests to the closing years of the century, featured presenter Robert Millard will explore the construction and decoration of one of John and Thomas Seymour’s iconic Lady’s Tambour Writing Desks. With these four desks participants will have an opportunity to consider changing approaches in Anglo-American case construction and design that run the gamut from typical to novel. Highlighting examples from our extensive collections, Tara Chicirda, Colonial Williamsburg’s curator of furniture, will kick off the conference by setting all of this in context.
In addition to these core presentations we have pulled together an impressive group of speakers and topics from the staff of Colonial Williamsburg: the construction of a desk on frame with joiner Ted Boscana, casting and engraving William and Mary hardware with master gunsmith George Suiter, a discussion of the recently discovered joiners shop of Luther Sampson in Duxbury, Massachusetts, with architectural historian Jeffrey Klee, and a dinner program with master carpenter Garland Wood on the recent construction of the massive armory complex including three workshop buildings.