CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – The American style. Is there such a thing? Is there a style that is both typically American and that can be found primarily only in this country? Of course there are a number of candidates and many of them would nicely fill the requirements of the “American style” at first glance but take a closer look.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – In today’s environment, both in business and at home, we cannot help but be impressed with the level of technology in our lives. My laptop computer not only allows me to do research and write about it when and where I choose. My cell phone can reach out to almost anyone in the world and my digital phone system at home will flash a message across my television screen identifying who is trying to reach me by telephone.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – I have previously written the requirement of knowing something about a craftsman or a company before taking it for granted that a recognizable name was a guarantee of quality goods. Brand name quality in furniture, as in almost everything else, has a tendency to rise and fall over time for a variety of reasons and it is important to know when the name was up and when it was down.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – If you are shopping for an older or antique dining table there are some things you need to pay attention to that probably would not be relevant to shopping for a new table.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – I was in college when the rack monster got a firm grip on me. In high school, while living at home, I had led a fairly sedate existence, keeping regular hours and getting lots of sleep. Between school, work and a steady girlfriend my life was, well, ordinary. But when the time for college rolled around it was party time. Any time. All the time. Not all the time, of course, because I did actually have to study a little but sleep – “rack time” as we called it – came after whatever was last on the priority list.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – The name Stickley is perhaps one the most famous and widely respected family names in the history of American furniture. And the most widely recognized of the five Stickley brothers was the oldest, Gustav. I have postulated that Gustav was ultimately responsible for the “American Look” in 20th century furniture. And while Gustav was famous in the span of his brief career and is even more revered today in auction halls across the country, how many pieces of Gustav’s work have you actually seen with your own eyes? How many have you had the chance to examine and appreciate in person what Gustav was trying to project? Even better yet, how many Gustav pieces do you own, or how many pieces did your parents or grandparents own?
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – Since my family has a long history in the American South – over 250 years – it seems natural that I would be drawn to Southern furniture. The question: where the heck is it? The answer is that a great deal of it is gone thanks to two destructive forces, the hot humid climate and Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – I recently read a column that used the development of a 17th century writing table to make several points, some about the table and some about the customers who have bought one. The author credits the evolution of this particular type of table to the founding of the English postal system, which meant that sending a letter no longer required the hire of a private courier. It only required a few pennies worth of postage to send a letter from London to Edinburgh and points in between. This brought personal letter writing into the realm of reality for the great unwashed, or at least the middle class, and its desire for a convenient writing surface bolstered the popularity of the writing table.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – Years ago I had a customer who asked me to sell her some of the professional “patina” we used to restore antiques. She was quite serious, and I gently told her we were all out at the moment but to check back later. Then I started thinking, what was she really asking for?
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – I spend a lot of time answering readers’ questions about their furniture. I love to do it and it sure beats working for a living. I sit at my computer, amid my research library, and sort out the details of periods and styles, of hardware and glass, of origins and histories and mysteries. I get to rummage back through thousands of photographs I took in my restoration shop and the additional thousands I have taken since then. This sometimes helps me remember a tidbit or clue about a piece or a style or a period.