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Episode 62 - The Master Series: Wharton Esherick
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In today's episode of the Master Series, we discuss the visionary American artist and furniture designer Wharton Esherick, celebrated as the father of the Studio Furniture Movement. Esherick believed furniture and sculpture were one and the same — that a chair, a table, or a staircase could be as emotionally resonant as any painting or bronze. His most iconic pieces pulse with organic, twisting forms drawn from nature, none more famous than his breathtaking spiral staircase, hand-carved from red oak, which stopped the world at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Did you know he started as a painter and only discovered wood by accident, carving frames for his own canvases? Did you know his entire home and studio on Valley Forge Mountain was itself a 40-year work of art — every door, cabinet, and light pull shaped by his own hands — now a National Historic Landmark and Museum??? Speaking of which, our special guest today is the Executive Director of his museum, Julie Siglin!
To watch the YOUTUBE VIDEO of this episode and the irreverent & somewhat unpredictable AFTERSHOW, subscribe to our Patreon: http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467
To browse the Gorilla Glue Wood Filler and Wood Glue (less water) mentioned in today's show: http://gorillatough.com/woodworkingisbs
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Backgrounds
00:00:16
Speaker
Good evening, friends. Get prepared. Strap in for another episode of your favorite podcast. This is Woodworking is Bullshit. I'm your host, Paul Jasper.
00:00:27
Speaker
Scientist by day, woodworker by night. And of course, I got my boy in the chair across from me. Fine furniture maker and ah content creator, Eric Curtis.
00:00:42
Speaker
Tengo el gato en mis pantalones, motherfuckers. What is the cat in my pants, did you say? Don't worry about it. That's for that's for ala that's for the after show. Oh, wow. Okay, sorry. I blanked on the intro there, Eric. You did, too. It just stopped. I only slept five hours last night from jet
Master Series and Guest Introduction
00:01:02
Speaker
lag. Anyway, um Today we have what is a recurring series of ours.
00:01:10
Speaker
I know you guys love it. And you might remember episodes about the Shakers or an episode on Nakashima.
00:01:21
Speaker
And today i have, we have our third installment of what we call the Master Series, where we feature the giants of our beloved craft.
00:01:34
Speaker
And today's episode is about Wharton Eshrich. Now, if you don't know that name, well, you're going to know it after today. Now, Wharton died in the 70s.
00:01:47
Speaker
And in fact, I believe all his children are also dead. So we couldn't have them on. But we had the next best thing, which is we got you because we love you. We got you the executive director of the Worden Eshrich Museum, Julie Siglin. Julie, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on the show.
Wharton Esherick's Life and Artistic Identity
00:02:11
Speaker
Absolutely. And to be fair, public access also got me. So we don't have that kind of budget, you know. ah Paul, you forgot to mention that she's one of the baddest bitches this side of the Mississippi.
00:02:23
Speaker
I do not. That was on the free call. You didn't say it. I just met Julie five. i just met Julie five minutes ago, Eric, and I would not be referring to her as such, but you can because you guys are fucking tight, ah thick as thieves. So Julie is the executive director of the Warren Ashford Museum. She knows so much about his life and legacy, and we will be relying on her heavily to guide our discussion today, which will take place in two parts because everyone knows I love structure.
00:02:55
Speaker
The first part of today. is's a Slump for structure. That's our t-shirt for this episode. I feel like I'm introducing like a talk. The first part of today's lecture will be about his life in history and introducing you to the person he was. No, absolutely. Like we have to understand who this giant was as a person, as an artist. How do you you become who he became? And then that will lead us to a series of questions that Eric and I have mischief, mischief, mischief, Mischiefs. No, you nailed it. You got it. Got it, Avery. Exactly right. Wait, can you help me with that? Nope, nope, nope.
00:03:32
Speaker
Absolutely not. Okay. yup We devised. We mischiefly mischiefs mischievously. Mischievously. That's it. Thank you. Jesus Christ. I shouldn't do it.
00:03:44
Speaker
I couldn't do it. That we mischievously devised prior to the episode to ask Julie. And we did not tell her these questions, but we think that these questions will bridge the gap between who this giant was and things that we often grapple with or think about today as makers.
00:03:59
Speaker
So we will see what how Julie answers those questions off the Maybe she'll answer them mischiefly. mischievously more mischievously mischievous like I hope I hope it's the latter okay with that so uh let's begin with uh Julie would you be so kind as to introduce us and the listeners about this wonderful uh absolutely so the short answer is that Wharton Eshrich was an artist
00:04:31
Speaker
He this was something that was in him present in him when he was little. His mother wrote and there was an oral history in which he said his mother complained there was never blank paper in their home when Wharton came around. He was one of seven kids, a twin.
00:04:49
Speaker
and showed interest and talent for for the creation of art in many forms from day one. His high school yearbook, he signed, i Think I Am an Artist.
00:05:02
Speaker
And at the end of his life, and I think it was the last year or two of his life, He had gotten into an argument with the Pennsylvania Tax Assessor's Office. We have these letters. really His letters were as expressive as his artwork in which he ah went to battle with them about whether he was a production furniture maker or was he an artist. And he signed those letters.
00:05:22
Speaker
I am known as an artist. So throughou the arc of his life, that was how he identified. He preferred that over woodworker, sculptor, furniture maker, e etc. um And it was, as I said, in him from the time he was a little kid.
00:05:36
Speaker
He came into the world right before the turn of the century. He was born and lived in and raised in West Philly. His parents were upper middle class. His father worked in merchant banking. His mother gave birth to a lot of kids and probably just spent her time dealing with them.
00:05:52
Speaker
But because of the time and the status in which he entered the world, there was sort of this prescription for his life. He would go to college. He would go into his father's. What's the year,
Shift to Woodworking and Artistic Influences
00:06:02
Speaker
Julie? 1887. 1887.
00:06:05
Speaker
So he's yeah he's, you know, the path is you go to college, you go into probably your father's business, you marry, you have kids, you behave a certain way, you dress a certain way, and you do what you're supposed to do. Morton did a couple of those things, but but not many. he He persisted in wanting to study art, and his family thought that that was going to result in an unpredictable income, which I know that everybody listening to this podcast knows absolutely. absolutely nothing about as an unpredicted as artist and as an artist no no yeah it's totally alien to you um so he ah he really though persisted in that and he wound up attending a vocational high school where had some printmaking and some other art instructions and practical um education and then he got a scholarship to attend PAFA and
00:06:56
Speaker
And he started as a painter. So we have a number of his paintings. And I hope everybody listening, if they haven't already been to his home, will will get there for a visit. his paintings Are they good?
00:07:08
Speaker
They're gorgeous. They're beautiful. He got a scholarship to study at PAPHA. So that was very validating for him as an artist. He was taught to paint portraiture and light and landscape. And when you look at his paintings, you see the talent, but what you don't see if you juxtapose those paintings with the work of other American Impressionist painters is Wharton Eshrick's voice.
00:07:28
Speaker
They just kind of get lost in in that style and that medium. when you are introduced to his work, whether it is an abstract sculpture or a functional piece of piece of art.
00:07:40
Speaker
And believe me, I've tried to come up with a better word. But in the 12 years I've been interpreting him, Eshariki is the best I have. His work is held in the collections of more than 20 institutions across the country.
00:07:53
Speaker
And so once you are introduced to his work, when you encounter it somewhere else, um you just know it when it's three-dimensional. can tell it by looking at it now? Absolutely, yeah. People who who get to know his work, it's it's he had a very, very strong singular artistic voice. It just take took him getting to the right material, the right the right form.
00:08:16
Speaker
Was it about two d to 3D? Yeah, so he so he's he enters Pafa on this scholarship. This is 1908 to 1910. True to form.
00:08:27
Speaker
And this is this is what I love about the guy. i'm going I'll go ahead and use the word rebel. I don't love it, but I'll use it. That's the word I've been thinking about the whole time. You've been saying, like well, he yeah did most of what he was supposed to do, and then he told everybody else to fuck off. yeah you know like that's That's his vibe. And I think to this day, when people come and experience what he called his autobiography in Three Dimensions, his autobiography,
00:08:48
Speaker
greatest work which is his studio filled with his his artwork people pick up on his lifestyle and his relationship to nature and his just I'm doing things my way almost as much as they pick up on the beauty of his artwork and So he's he's in this program and things are looking really validating and bright for his future as an artist. He's studying with some heavy hitters in American Impressionism.
00:09:13
Speaker
Celia Bowe is one of his um instructors. And he drops out about two months before he was going to graduate. wow And he wrote about this decision, which I'm sure his parents really loved.
00:09:24
Speaker
um Two months? Dude, yeah suck it up for two months. yeah yeah some yeah Some people call it a rebel and some people call it just being a dick, you know? Well, here's what he... here's what he had So he's in this program and and things are looking bright. He's identifying as an artist. that's That's the path his life is on. He drops out right before the end.
00:09:44
Speaker
But what he wrote about it really resonated with me. In fact, it was one of the first things I learned about him when I was studying. I was a volunteer before i ever joined the the staff, a volunteer docent.
00:09:55
Speaker
And when I read this, I thought, this guy really, i love this guy. He said he was he felt like he was being taught to paint like his instructors. Yeah. And he wanted to learn how to paint like the artists were Neserik. And I have a lot of artists friends in my sphere. I know that's probably shocking, but they all same say similar things. You know, it's it's there's there's a lot of you that has to go into figuring out your own artistic voice. And he was,
Legacy and Influence on Modernism
00:10:24
Speaker
he was there. He was done with formal art instruction, and right, wrong, or different. And so question, yeah how old, you know, like to, to be able to say, i don't want my art to look like yours. I want it to look like mine is to me a very bold and experienced statement. How old was he when he said that?
00:10:44
Speaker
He's 23 years I was going to say, damn bold, bold is right. Experience. Yeah. What a stud. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
00:10:55
Speaker
Have you seen a picture of Okay, so can can we can we go from like that era where he drops out, he he lives life, he's finding himself, and then like I want to fast forward just for the sake of time to to when he discovers three-dimensionality, right? So the Alabama trips, yeah those types of things, if we could speak to that. So he starts out trying to sell painting. He's not really having a lot of success with that.
00:11:21
Speaker
his He met and married a woman named Letitia Nofer Letty. Letty is really a topic that as an institution we are deep into because she, art history is what it is, and she was really not part of the narrative when the institution was more of a family run.
00:11:39
Speaker
organization. But Letty not only was and a textile artist and a talented one herself, she also was hugely influential on Esharic in introducing him to the socially progressive ideas and people that opened doors for him to to show his work, to evolve his work, and to collaborate with people. So Letty wanted to study progressive education. And when our first child came around, they went down to Fairhope, Alabama for a school year. This is 1919. So she could study under this progressive educator.
00:12:11
Speaker
Wharton is painting. He's teaching painting. He's asked to hang a show of his work at the organic school where Lettie is studying. But this is a single text sort of utopian community. There's a lot of creatives and progressives living there. There's no frame shop nearby. ah So he turns to the readily available material of wood and starts carving representational wooden frames. And right away...
00:12:35
Speaker
it's It's clear that when people came in to see his work presented in this way, but the frames were actually a little more enticing than the paintings that had they asked. All right. i your Time out. I think about this often about Eshrek and just about like the the progression of an artist in general. So you have a person who decided that he was going to be an artist, who went to ah art school who studied at at the time. PATHO was like one of the top art schools in the country and ah ah dropped out months before graduation because it was like, fuck you. I'm Wharton Ashrick. I'm not you. And then he goes and he paints all of these things. And the thing that sells the paintings is the frame that he haphazardly carved, not the paintings themselves. Like it's it's this weird thing where you're like, I'm i'm sure he was glad to sell the painting.
00:13:29
Speaker
but also like a just a kick in the nards to just be like the frame. Yeah. Really? And and I think, you know, he actively abandoned paintings. He continued to sketch. Sketching was was a form of documentation for him of daily life of travel. And it was probably just a compulsion as an artist, but he left painting fully behind. He even destroyed some of the paintings as artists want to do. Yeah. Oh shit. Yeah. Hmm.
00:13:52
Speaker
You know, I think it it underlies something I think about him as as sort of the big word cloud things. His Venn diagram, if you will, is somebody who is a problem solver and is doing it with humor and beauty. And he had a problem, he didn't have frames for his paintings. So he made them and then realized, oh, wow, there's something going on with me. in this so So he's a pragmatist on some level. Absolutely. Because he was like, these things move.
00:14:15
Speaker
So I'm going to do those things instead of the thing that I want to do or or how I feel I know. Correct. yeah Man, that's interesting. interesting for For a rebel and, ah you know, that's kind of a dick.
00:14:27
Speaker
ah That that is a that's that's a move that requires a level of humility. Yeah. Hmm. And what's sort of what I'm thinking right now, I'm in the mind of the listener because I i don't know a lot about Esher coming into this. So I think me and a lot of listeners are like, who? And so what but but I did go to the museum and I do know where he wound up eventually in this.
00:14:54
Speaker
um I want to give the listeners kind of a preview of coming attractions to help connect the dots. It's like the most insane curvilinear organic. Like it's kind of growing out of the ground half the time. Sculptural curvilinear forms in furniture and in and a house that like it it's almost tokenish in a way. Sometimes I feel like. So, so yeah. So I don't have.
00:15:22
Speaker
Finish. Go ahead. Yeah. So my thought. i got excited. Sorry. and thought I'm glad I'm capable of exciting you, Eric. Even after all. Yeah. Even after all this time, baby.
00:15:36
Speaker
Even after all this time didn't know it was this kind of podcast. Yeah, well, sometimes it is. ah So how do we connect the dots between someone who like started from the the upper crust of the Philadelphia going to art school and and impressionist education? And holy shit, I love making the frame all the way to this yo curve. ah Anyway, that's what we have.
00:16:02
Speaker
coming and in store. And I, I'm so interested to see how we connect these dots. Please continue. So, so I'll, I'm going lay down some of that story though, and continuing to just sort of bring you up to, to what we all understand him to be, or or those of you who are getting to know him well.
00:16:19
Speaker
You know, he is he is considered eventually the leader of the art historical movement of Studio Affirmature. he He becomes that figure well past middle age.
00:16:31
Speaker
So, you know, there's a takeaway that ye that you always keep pursuing... your own creative output and and try not to be afraid of it and always experiment. You're saying it's never too late.
00:16:44
Speaker
I am. i am saying Absolutely. ah So when, but, but there was also, and I think this is another important point that we'll all get across in some way in the conversation is that he collaborated. um And the more we get to know him as ah as ah the organizational staff, we think of him and as the the absolute broadest version of that word. So, you know, his his circle of friends were musicians and writers and people who were who were heavily involved in trying to change society. He was a modernist. People like to think of him as this arts and crafts sort of lone genius up on the mountain. But he's in he's in there with the likes of Philip Johnson making houses out of glass. You know, he's he is part of the American modernist movement. We tend to subscribe those romantic qualities. Wood is very organic and natural. And when we're surrounded by it. Our haptic senses are all happy. And, you know, so you so you really can put him in this kind of category. But He was he was a progressive artist and and was part of part of this movement. And one of the things that that we are sort of peeling back the layers on with Esherick now is that he worked with other artists to create his works.
00:17:56
Speaker
He's not doing all these dovetails. He's not doing all this stuff. Eventually, yes, he... Yes, he's doing, I don't want to say this the the wrong way. Yes, he's he's, his quote about it, this is this is how i'll I'll land this point.
00:18:11
Speaker
He gave an interview in Craft Horizons magazine, I think it was 1964, but I can't remember the month. And he was asked about this idea of the handmade being this pure, precious thing. has to be made by hand. God, and that conversation is still going. It's still going. It's still going. And I am so curious how Esherick would respond to, mean, he said a couple of things in that interview. One was he would use any tool of disposal, including his teeth, if it would help him get through piece of work faster to get to the next idea that was in line in that gray matter.
00:18:45
Speaker
And also that the idea of that preciousness of the handmade was total applesauce, which was his polite code word for bullshit. He said, it what What matters in in the handmade object is the head and the heart.
00:19:01
Speaker
And so, you know, I say, i i tell that story often to artists because I think that they're, you know, the tools that are available to us now are enticing. And and you can...
00:19:14
Speaker
he He never formally studied woodworking. He never formally studied architecture. The site is a national historic landmark for architecture. So when I think about him and what he realized, it seems to me that by not studying those disciplines, by not starting with the best practices and all the precedent and all the things that you must do when you're starting out, he could just just say, OK, I want a desk that is super funky. And you have to open this drawer before you can open this cabinet. And it's And it's just my favorite pieces. Yeah, the the Fisher does. Or I want to create ah his garage looks like a big bug that if you startle it, it's just going to fly away. It has a hyperbolic paraboloid roof.
00:19:54
Speaker
he And that's a utilitarian space. But he took the time to make something just absolutely amazing and was unbound by all of those sort of ideals of how supposed And there's so many things in like the last 90 seconds of what you just said to digest, including the fact that he never formally studied architecture, but now his house is a nationally recognized architectural landmark. one of about 25 fucking like of all the flexes yeah of all the flexes um but the thing that i want like if we could go back a few minutes the thing that has always stood out to me that when we talk about the studio furniture movement and in eric can you just yeah can you just fine was gonna i was literally about to apologize to mary for having to define the studio furniture movement mary here's to your
00:20:46
Speaker
It is this I mean, you might have a more formal definition than I do, Julie, but to my understanding, the studio furniture movement is a thing that came about in the 20th century that basically defines this idea of making one off pieces of furniture, not for a replication, not for mass manufacturing, but you have an idea and you execute the idea sometimes in speculation, sometimes for a client. And ah it is I don't I don't know if historically it's the first step toward ah art like furniture making being considered an art form. But if we were to take a broader look at art history on the whole, um once the thing becomes mechanized and doable by a machine, then that craft tends to be considered an art. and And we're talking about mass manufacturing in the late 1800s and the rise of the studio furniture movement in the early twentieth century. So that that movement is really about um but making one-off objects as an expression of art, even though it is born out of a craft. And Ashbrick is really the first to do that. yeahp
00:21:54
Speaker
And the coming back to life. Really, Eric? Eric, the first? Really? I mean, I'm not challenging that. I'm just surprised.
Career Progression and Personal Challenges
00:22:03
Speaker
I think probably the true answer is that there were Before mechanization, there's people that's what people are making furniture in studios all over the place. yeah butres They're making things that are covering up the evidence of the the maker.
00:22:18
Speaker
They're covering up joints. They're aligning the style with whatever was popular of the day. They're not making things that are an artwork that you can sit on or eat off of. And and the the GI Bill enabled a lot of returning soldiers to go into just study things that you know make them feel better. And art's one of them. And so you you know you get some some people kind of gelling this idea of making furniture as as a beautiful object that serves a function. There was probably rather a big disparate network of artists who were doing that. Yeah. Esherick gets the visibility, you know, I think Instagram is as much of a tool for a furniture maker today as ah as a hand plane. He doesn't have any of that. So when he participates in the 1940 World's Fair with an architect, George Howell, and furnishes his his modernist home booth in the World's Fair called Pennsylvania Hill House.
00:23:13
Speaker
Overnight, a ton of people are introduced Esherick's work. And that's when. he this people And it's incredible. So people are looking at it and saying, okay, this guy knows something about this. And and that's sort of when he gets he gets tapped as as kind of a leader of it. He then went on to be president or president at a lot of the seminal events that further defined it. So the Asilomar conference for the American Craft Council that happened in 60 something. I forget what that was. Well, question. So wait, Eric, before question, like we kind of left off with, I learned to paint. I wanted to do my own thing. I made the frame and it turns out the frame was very compelling to me. And now we're like, he's some big shot studio furniture movement. 1940. Yeah. What came between years? Yeah. Like, mean like yeah. Like, like what, how how did he transition from? I made furniture.
00:24:08
Speaker
There was another human who was who was really important in that gap that you're identifying, Paul. And that's that's underlying this idea that that you know artists aren't always working alone. And and working with other artists does not detract from from your work So he had met a guy named John Schmidt. John had been an orphan in Hungary and had gone into an apprenticeship for cabinet making. So he's making traditional cabinet, very fine.
00:24:36
Speaker
You know, everything is very square and perfect and it's elaborately decorated. It's not the kind of studio furniture that we're talking about, but he's very skilled at it. And John immigrated to the U.S. to live near a family member who was here. It happened to be about a mile from Esherick's studio. So he's coming back from his Alabama trip where he's had this sort of regulatory experience with wood and he's interested in it. And actually, John Schmidt's shop in his barn was one of his first makers spaces when he was playing with Woodmore. So John continued to work with and for Esherick for a long time. There are pieces out there where the contribution was considered high enough to have a JS next to the next to the W. All right. so So so sorry. If I'm connecting the dots, Julie, he started making on his own. But then he started thinking, I need someone who's more skilled in the craft to realize, help me realize my ideas.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not sure, Paul, unless unless we i mean, A.I. is here. Robots are here. Maybe the time machine's not that far behind. When we get that, I i know who I'm talking to and he's going to have to be very patient because I have so many questions for word. naturally But. okay One of them is, you know, were you thinking about furniture before John kind of came in?
00:25:54
Speaker
I see. like So we don't probably answer is yes. I can tell you that he was buying antique furniture and carving into it. An important thing I sort of skipped over is that he had gotten into woodblock printmaking.
00:26:07
Speaker
We have about 300 of the wood blocks that we, that we house and care for at WEM. And he's, this is how books were illustrated that in the day. This is a marketing happened, you know, before half tone printing technology enabled photographs to be printed in his print. So he had success artistically as a printmaker, but that's also the medium of of wood. So he's doing that. And then when he gets into furniture, he buys antique chests or whatever, and he would elaborately carve um this sort of narrative piece.
00:26:35
Speaker
decoration and and when he first gets into furniture some of the early pieces have surface decoration and can we can we pause for a brief second there because we have talked on this podcast time and time again about the myth of the furniture maker and like you only work on commission and you only make like a handful of pieces a year and that's how you pay your bills from the genesis of this movement of the studio furniture movement you have a man who is taking on a production work, right? Like, I mean, he's carving them by hand, but then he's printing all of these prints, all of these books, all of these things in his studio. He had a print in in later years, a giant press. So he's printing all of these things. Like, this is how he's paying the bills.
00:27:18
Speaker
And then the the furniture that comes along, those are like, you know, there's a sprinkled on top like he's finding ways to make money that aren't furniture and then ah the ability design an interesting object comes along every now and again oh that's interesting eric that's very helpful and you have clients who who would actively when he was involved in a big project that prevented him from creating lots of saleable things while he was working on something would buy editions of prints from him so that they can hand him money. Yeah. um You know, and these, and these were the client relationship is, is ah I think a fascinating aspect of Esherix. He, he struggled like a lot of artists to price his work. And the more people love that he wanted to just give it to you.
00:28:02
Speaker
um i have an Eric Curtis box that was given to me because I loved it. Eric, but and ah that's just love, man. know? Yeah. I mean, love is where it's at for high end made things. 100%.
00:28:15
Speaker
one hundred percent especially with your friends so so i went to art school that sucked i wanted to find my own voice i did paint really well i started making frames and then i got into woodblock printing and then i met someone who knew woodworking better than me but he could help me realize my ideas but i dabbled in it on the side while i was making my woodblocks to pay the bills is that my understanding correct it's yeah, it's very, it's in the, we're in the ballpark.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yes. So I, I feel like his in, in correct me if I'm wrong on this, but this is my emotional interpretation of his career. Uh, when you go to the museum, you go to his home, you see his life's work. You look back on whatever he was, 80 something when he died, 80, 80. Sorry. Just sorry. It was 83rd birthday. Okay. Okay. Um,
00:29:09
Speaker
You look back on that and there is, there's a through line, but it's also abject chaos, right? Like it is just fucking everything everywhere all at once. If I could steal that phrase. Um,
00:29:25
Speaker
I feel like his career is mirrored by the visual output of of the museum of his home, where like he knew like design, asking questions, ah making interesting objects, two dimensional or three dimensional was the thing that he was meant to do on this planet.
00:29:44
Speaker
And however the fuck he could figure out to maintain enough of an income to continue to do that was what he was going to do. So the through line is just like making shit. Yes. And sometimes it's wood blocks. Sometimes it's commissioned furniture. I love it. Sometimes it's, it's architectural millwork and I love it. Massive staircases and fireplaces for the Curtis house or the Bach house. Right. And sometimes it's making things that he needed.
00:30:09
Speaker
Sure. He needed a bench of sit on. He needed, you know, a counter to cook on. Okay, so you guys are, you two, yeah you two are so close to the word and hashtag story. i'm I'm more in the view of the listener.
00:30:24
Speaker
You talk about his house.
Wharton Esherick Museum and Personal Life
00:30:26
Speaker
Like we all know that his house exists and it's a museum. Can you like be explicit about that? So his house and Julie, you could do 10 times better than me, but I'll start, I'll start you off his house that he did almost everything himself. It's like a passion. It seems like a passion project of his his ultimate passion project is like to build fashion the place you live is one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in my life and now it's a museum is that correct that's correct and where can you tell like like I don't think this is common knowledge I know you guys are too close to this tell us I know I've been thinking about this this whole episode like we're just like fucking we're talking about deep cut estric shit just like referencing things and no sorry I got excited okay oh my god you're totally clipping kid take it easy um
00:31:21
Speaker
Like, I don't think the listeners even understand. So there's a museum. That was his house. Julie, can you tell us a little more more about that if you would like to visit this? Yes, absolutely. So ah him and his wife had had moved out of the city after being married for a year. This is 1913 when they moved to Paoli, where the or Malvern, rather, where the um museum is located. So this is roughly 20 miles outside of...
00:31:45
Speaker
Philadelphia, very close to Valley Forge Park, the big national park. So they had had a vision for their life. They were total hippies.
00:31:55
Speaker
they They wanted to have this this pastoral, close to earth, um idyllic life. They were going to live out in the country. They're going to grow their food. They're city kids. They were learning how to do that as they went. she I see. She made clothes. They were nudists. So...
00:32:11
Speaker
Probably not a whole lot of them. There's a great story about his his daughter running around without clothes and somebody came and was scandalized and said something. So the daughter went inside and came back out with a hat on.
00:32:22
Speaker
They were living... If you fast forwarded, they probably would have been living on a commune. Is this like the 40s? 1940s? No, this 1913 when they moved out to the mountains. Oh, even earlier. They were very atypical family.
00:32:40
Speaker
Okay, so they bought this house in the country. Well, they bought an they bought an old 1800s farmhouse. we The museum now sits on a 12-acre parcel. At the time, they they only owned the lower half of it, if you will.
00:32:54
Speaker
And when Escher begins woodworking in earnest and the tools and materials processes require space... He then ah started to build the studio. So what is now the museum, we actually have several buildings on the campus.
00:33:12
Speaker
The main part of the museum is it's effectively historic house museum that we don't treat it as such. He um he built it was his started in his studio and evolved over four years. It became his home. He put two additions on it. The last one being in 19. Did he actually build the building itself?
00:33:30
Speaker
He did. He had a stonemason and two two laborers, probably some other people in the mix. um When you come to visit, one of the first things that you encounter when you enter the building are these charming coat pegs in the sort of little vestibule that are representative of each person who helped him realize his his um most famous work, which is the studio. He called it his autobiography in three dimensions. And it's John Schmidt holding a saw with visible saw teeth. It's the bird that sang to them. It's the stonemason getting ready to lay a stone just where it needs to go. And then Esherick's coke peg is a little bigger and it's up higher. and
00:34:09
Speaker
but that's okay cause it's because it's his house. But yes, there so I mentioned it's a National Historic Landmark for architecture. And of the five buildings on the upper campus, only one involved an architect.
00:34:20
Speaker
A pretty notable architect. It was Lu Kan and An Ting helped him build his his second studio. couple of big ones. So when you come for a visit, um you you experience ah several of the buildings and and go through. we do not... The the founders were Esher's family. um And they achieved they achieved that by living on the property. They renovated one of the buildings, his later studio, into their home. They gave the tours. They mowed the grass. They cared for it. they They kept it free from...
00:34:54
Speaker
board members who wanted to do weird things and sell the collection. And, you know, they just they really gave it their they handed their lives over to doing it as unpaid and and untrained museum professionals. But um so when you come, you you experience those two buildings and we never put anything between you and the work. You go in, Esher built the buildings and all the furnishings. It's a critical mass of the staircases, right? You walk up the spiral staircase. Like made by him by hand. That is, yes I know this is a limited time offer that probably can't stay that way forever due to erosion. Well, right yeah, we, you know, my first two thoughts when I was offered the director role at this institution was, oh, yay. Oh, shit. That staircase. because it's very scary to be responsible for that. But what it really needs is targeted temperature and humidity.
00:35:42
Speaker
Like everything else Eshrick did is extremely well built. um So as long as you can get over your fear of like open tread spiral stair with very minimal handrails, you're good to go. So just for a moment, that's very, to me, I can see this 50, 100 years from now. This is a time limited offer. Like nothing lasts forever. And the fact that it's in a shape that we can experience it literally walking up it personally is an amazing time to be alive is how I see it. So I felt this sense of awe when I visited the museum that I was actually in the space. I was standing on the pieces of wood that were carved by this passionate,
00:36:26
Speaker
um like compelling individual who had such an artistic direction in his life. So i mean the fact that that's still a possibility at the museum is incredible to me.
00:36:38
Speaker
Shout out to my preservation director, Andy Gustine. Big Amy. That's what we call her in the hood. Andy. Big Andy. <unk>abi You can call me. That's what we call her in the hood. I'm not sure anymore.
00:36:55
Speaker
Okay. ah so hold lot Hold on. Can I ask a question? Yeah. um in In this, this has... I don't want to idealize Esherick too heavily and to make him out to be a saint, right? um So what you mentioned is his his children ah ran the museum after his death. Ruth, correct? Yeah, his middle daughter Ruth. Okay. so so he had three children and three children. His middle daughter took over the property, lived on the property, ran the museum. um You mentioned earlier in the episode that ah his, his wife, Letty was not really a part of the pick. Like she's overlooked and and she did her own things. Yeah.
00:37:41
Speaker
I don't know anything personally about the children's relationship to Letty or how they viewed their father later on. Like, he was a very human figure. At some point, he and Letty split, and this was very abnormal for whatever it was, like 1920, 1930. Yeah, they never formally divorced because of that, but they but they live separate lives. yeah Okay, so, like, what...
00:38:02
Speaker
you have at least from, from ignorant standpoint, you have a child who is, um or children who, who might have this kind of tension and how they view their father of like incredible portfolio, incredible life, like story to be told, but like, was he a good dad?
00:38:22
Speaker
You know, people love to talk about Esherick's personality his love life, his marriage. And I think as a staff, as particularly as a staff who overlapped with his literal children and and his son-in-law, we have a pretty sharp perspective, I'll say. But I'll also say that human beings are what they are. And that I think i think as a society, we tend to take...
00:38:54
Speaker
artists, creatives, celebrities, whatever. We put them in this other box that that makes them, you know, all their quirks and their negative personality traits are cute and they're you know they're interesting and all that stuff. you know He was... he woke up some days grumpy and he acted like a total poo head. And he, he, I mean, he, he was a person who lived a life.
00:39:16
Speaker
yeah I think he was a person who lived a life that elevated, obviously beauty, obviously the act of making and what creativity and, and, you know, bringing that outlet into your life does to a person, which I think makes us humble and interesting and maybe a little kinder.
00:39:35
Speaker
But I also think he was just he there's a letter he wrote referring to his children as nuisances. I mean, OK, Well, Julie, Julie. yeah So I feel like we know this. I don't mean about Esherik per se, but when you're that devoted to something, anything, it doesn't mean you're a great dad or a great partner. i mean, there's so there's no that's called balance, right?
00:39:59
Speaker
In fact, it's usually the opposite, right? The more devoted you are to a singular drive, the less you have time to balance the other parts of life. Yeah. So I mentioned that we we talk a lot about Letty these days because Letty, when their marriage unraveled, she took the two older kids, the two daughters, and went to live and work at a repertory theater company that's still active today, the Hedro Theater.
00:40:23
Speaker
And Esher stayed behind with his youngest son, Peter. They moved into the studio at that time. um to rent the farmhouse they had and have extra income. But, you know, I think Letty in the institution's storyline, when it was still the family and we use, we thought a lot about this, we use the analogy of a telescope, that the closer you are to something, the harder it is to see it broadly contextual. It's not the family's fault. You just romanticize what you know. sure but But according to the narrative that was shaped by the family, Letty just disappears.
00:40:57
Speaker
But this is, you know, the women listening to this will will probably understand what I'm getting at right away here, that art history tends to do that. So, yeah you know, Letty cleaned his home, cooked his meals, cared for his children, all these things that enabled him to walk up to that studio every day and be a maniac making things out of wood. So it's not, it wasn't ah him or her, it was it was both of them. Well, that's okay that's why I wanted to ask the question, though, because ah whatever medium our listeners are working with, and I think it's majority wood, but certainly they're like we've got ceramicists, we've got painters, we've got illustrators, et cetera. um
00:41:41
Speaker
there is that tendency to romanticize the like the production at the at the cost of the family or yeah or the self. Absolutely. And I think there are also a not insignificant component of our listenership who would be like, well, I would never fucking do that. That's why I'm going to keep this a hobby. And you mentioned compulsions earlier and like, could he stop himself from doing x And I'm not not trying to make an excuse out of it, but that's an interesting human...
00:42:09
Speaker
like tension in there of you, you have this wife, you have three children and also you can't not do the thing. yeah yeah And, and how does all of that resolve? It's, it's, it's a part of the thing that we don't really talk about in the, the broader
Esherick's Style and Sponsors Discussion
00:42:24
Speaker
studio furniture. What it, what it takes to, to be successful in this and what you have to give up. I, I point out often that he lived in the studio as, as a home for 24 years before he,
00:42:36
Speaker
before he installed the first sort of considered kitchen. You know, this is just like tight. And it is a small, unusually shaped building. So so there were and physicality factored into it. But I think what he also, liked boiled ham. I mean, the guy was not a, he was not a gourmand. There's his cookbooks are the McCall's cookbook, the over 50 cookbook and the pecan cookbook.
00:43:00
Speaker
So who's got time to eat when you're making art? Well, that's the point. That's the point I'm making, Paul, that I think. you know esharic was a person who woke up in the morning with an idea in his head or something to get back to that he was working on that just overtook everything yeah and that's a here that's a story we've heard many times in artistic and you hear that friends if you want to be successful as a furniture maker you can only eat boiled ham that's all that's all there is Okay, so the one thing the one thing, again, you guys are so close. You guys are looking through the telescope of Ward Neshek. And me, I'm kind on the outside. it's like So we've established that his home was made and it reflects his aesthetic. It's one of his greatest achievements and and things that he's ever made is his um his home.
00:43:49
Speaker
and Which is now a museum and you can go visit. It's in Pennsylvania. um And i would like to talk about because it's an audio podcast, it's hard to understand why we are having him as the master series. Like we haven't really explained to you why his art is so provocative.
00:44:08
Speaker
And so I would like to challenge each of you. I didn't prepare you for this. I just came up with this off the cuff. Bring it. I want I want the two of you to give me adjective soup o about what his work looks like.
00:44:24
Speaker
Why are we having him on the Master Series? I have an answer that I've ruminated over for years and I keep coming back to. And I think once people are introduced to the work, they get what I'm talking about. I sound a little bit nuts when I start talking about it. Please. there is There is a sense of movement imbued in Asherik's work.
00:44:49
Speaker
and And for visitors who who are coming to us without any interest or background in woodworking at all, you know they've never held the tool and they've never done anything. You you kind of tell the story of you think of the material of wood, you think of a tree in the forest. It doesn't move, it doesn't sway.
00:45:04
Speaker
it's not and doesn't have fluidity, it's not a fragile material. And Esher gets a hold of this and turns it into something that you literally, i mentioned the building that that feels like if you startled it it, it will fly away. when you hit the edges of his desks and furniture are often, you know, they're very rounded off and they follow these curvilinear lines that are really, really,
00:45:29
Speaker
ah friendly to the human form and considerate of not only the the human form, but how people move through a room. His his tables were kidney shaped. and And if you sit at one of his tables, what you find is you're not turning your head fully to one side or the other to talk to the person next to you. But there is just this beautiful sort of bubble happening here. There is it's I need to get better at talking about it. But, you know, there's there's a plaster form that dates back to his path of days in up in the bedroom space of the museum of a a woman wearing a sort of diaphanous dress with her arm up in it in a dance movement. And I will point to that and then point to one of his library ladders, which is a piece of furniture that moves you up a couple of feet so you can get something off the shelf. But you can you can make a visual immediate connection between those two. It has this gorgeous hand like column with a twist on the top and then this sinewy curved steps. There is just he he puts a sensibility into this material that I have never seen another woodworker do.
00:46:35
Speaker
Oh, that was such a good answer. Sensual and sinewy is I changed my answer from the beginning of the podcast. okay That's our t-shirt. That's our t-shirt for this. All right. What are some other adjectives? I would say curvilinear, organic.
00:46:51
Speaker
I mean, the way, like i mean, listen, we we can we can categorize it all day long. Like he he was not the first to do what he did, um but he... the way that I described his studio to people who have never been in don't know Eshric or studio furniture movement is just like, if you were to walk into the Mad Hatter's house on acid,
00:47:16
Speaker
that's kind of what it feels like. It's just overwhelming with the amount of, uh, uh, nonsense. And I say nonsense in like a positive way. You know what I mean? Like it's a playful nonsense. It's everything moves and everything moves maybe towards something else or loops back on itself in some way. Um, and there's a, there's a animation to everything that he does. That is, I mean, Paul, we talked about this on the last episode where like,
00:47:45
Speaker
if something is straight line and rectilinear, when you observe it, you feel as though you can take in all of the information in a snapshot, right? Like it's ah it's a two dimensional thing that's been extruded into three dimensions. Whereas I think part of the reason that I um really resonated with Esherick's work early on and like latched onto it is because it doesn't matter where you stand in his studio or in front of a piece of his work.
00:48:15
Speaker
There is always a reason to like run your hand or at minimum your eyeball around the thing to another location. And that like, that's that sensuality, you know? That's really interesting. I think there's, if I may, there's also another quality to it that people don't necessarily immediately recognize, but once you point it out, they understand his designs were extremely friendly to the human body again, but also how we interact with furniture. So there's a cabinet owned by, and private ownership, that I get it to interact with, that it's about shoulder height to me. It's this gorgeous demi-lune cabinet up against a wall.
00:48:56
Speaker
And when you open it, there's no applied hardware, so you have to just figure out what to do with it. which you toggle switch, you open it. And when you open a cabinet like that and you hold the door out, your fingers, try this if you have a tall cabinet, your fingers are going to hold it, your your index and your middle finger at the end of the cabinet at the top with two fingers. And that's how you're going to hold it or some version of that. And there is a little groove in the top of both of these cabinet doors for your fingers to go. You know, it just, there there is something familial, comforting, immediate, and just...
00:49:30
Speaker
Anthro... Anthropomorphic? Sure. mischief Mischievous. miss Mischief. oh I'm not going through that word.
00:49:41
Speaker
Well, you know, it it does strike me. Esherik did um consider the human body a lot and how we interact with with the the objects. And um another person who considers the human body quite a lot is William T. Burkle, the sponsor of this week's video. Yeah.
00:50:02
Speaker
if you've never been if you've never been held and caressed by our lord and savior william teresa burkle at wcb woodworking uh you should head to 390 pike road uh in hunnington valley to pennsylvania laia because let me tell you you some shit about what's happening right now is he always an episode gonna come out he's gonna love this ad read it's gonna be great when's this episode coming out i know but he's gonna double our rate after this one But you offered free caresses from him. Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yeah. he's there You better give him mad he is a heads up. He is a masculine man, but oddly soft to the touch. ah So ah on May 23rd, which is definitely in time for this episode, they're having Maffel Day.
00:50:47
Speaker
So make sure you get over there from 8 a.m. m to 1 p.m. and learn any and all things about Maffel. There's going to be expert insights, hands-on demos, and lunch will be provided. And let me tell you something, friends. I have been over there for demos where lunch is provided. You will eat your weight in cheeseburgers and hot dogs. And I don't know what else you want out of this fucking life.
00:51:09
Speaker
Eric, what is Maffel? Uh, it's a, it's flavor of ice cream, I think. Is it like, is the like ah butthe it uh, it's, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a tree.
00:51:28
Speaker
No, it's a tool company. For sure he will be neither. Honest to Christ. Let's see. What else is going on? 10% off Zenwoo Toolworks in store. 25% off mag switches. And you get a free SawStop upgrade. This is a... You know, what I'm... Guys, ah this is a true story. I'm...
00:51:51
Speaker
I'm cold reading this information for the first time and just got intrigued by the idea of a free upgrade to my saw stop on any new for, Oh, I got to buy it new. Okay. Nevermind. Fuck this shit. Uh, on any new professional cabinet saw, uh, ends on April 30th. So get your shit over there. Cause that's tomorrow. And you won't hear this in time. Uh, anything else you want to add to that ball?
00:52:14
Speaker
Oh no, Eric. Listen, you gotta, you gotta give them little tease sometimes. Well, if you don't like Maffel, what was it, Maffel flavored ice cream? Maffel flavored ice cream? You could have the LaMelo flavored ice cream.
00:52:29
Speaker
you can't You can have a LaMelo flavored ice cream. But, ah I mean, listen, I mentioned the strong but considerate touch of Billy and T. Burkle. You know who else has a strong but considerate touch?
00:52:43
Speaker
Please tell us. ah and And our dear friends at Gorilla Glue... Gorillas. Gorillas and the glue that they provide. I see. I don't know if you know this, the sometimes but much like hide glue, sometimes you boil down gorillas to get gorilla glue.
00:53:05
Speaker
no no think that's how that works i feel good about that information good don't get me wrong gorilla glue will not feel good about that information but i do as eric theresa curtis ah
00:53:19
Speaker
follow uh yes he did yes did just say they made gorilla clue No, no, no, no, no I absolutely, I cannot stress it enough for legal purposes. I did not suggest that Gorilla Glue is made from gorillas. I simply suggested that sometimes gorillas are made into glue, I think.
00:53:42
Speaker
There's no way to, oh. And the glasses. So Paul, tell us about the yellow glue that they make before they cancel our contract, would you? Yeah.
00:53:57
Speaker
No, okay, he's toast. He's useless. So let me tell you something. Gorilla wood glue it has less water and more glue and it's stronger bonds than the other guys. It drives a natural color. It drives a natural color. Okay. no Why did you have to say that? I cannot be legally held responsible for the words that come out of my mouth.
Posthumous Acclaim and Artistic Views
00:54:21
Speaker
Okay. There are two products from a Gorilla Glue That we have both received and we are both starting to use Eric, which is the wood filler and the yellow PVA glue by Grilled. I have never before ah receiving that. I hadn't tried the wood glue. I had only tried the polyurethane glue, which you and I agree.
00:54:44
Speaker
seems to work excellent. That was fantastic. Yeah. ah veneering and such because there's no water which makes everything not cup thankfully and if the eric oh my god and and i'm i am i am i am hurting uh and if the yellow glue had doing great yeah buddy but The yellow glue has less water in it, which very much appeals to me because I often do smalls, which involve thin glue ups and water makes them cup.
00:55:19
Speaker
So that is why I am interested in checking out Gorilla Glue wood glue. And where can the folks find Gorilla Glue? You tell them.
00:55:30
Speaker
please excellent i would be more than happy to do so uh so you can order yours today at gorilla tough.com slash woodworking is bs that's gorilla tough.com slash woodworking is bs and i know i cannot stress this enough it is a water-based glue not a gorilla-based glue no Oh, God, Eric, please don't ever... Like, I was literally crying. had tears in my eyes. couldn't even talk. Thank you for that. We're doing great. Okay. Back to... Back to Wharton Eshrich, who did not use...
00:56:07
Speaker
gorilla based as far as we know as far as who did not boil gorillas it was it was the end of the 20th century or 18th century you know they didn't nobody knew what was going on all right so i feel like the listeners understand the some of the contribution now of warren estrich they understand that there's a museum they can go visit And they they have some idea about what makes his pieces so special. So, Eric, perhaps we can transition to the three questions that we prepared for Julie as the director and get her sort of thoughts. And then you and I can add our thoughts.
00:56:46
Speaker
Love it. um Julie, why do you think Wart Nashrick became more popular after his death than during his life?
00:57:02
Speaker
Oh, do you think that he's more popular after his death and during his life? I will answer it this way. One of the things that we as an institution, the Wurton-Ashrick Museum, has been up to in in recent years is particularly as we sort of took over stewardship of of the site and his legacy from the family to, to museum professionals is trying to appropriately contextualize Warton Eshrich in the art history canon.
00:57:38
Speaker
The, but there are There are different tools available for for those things now. We talked about how Asher, you know, wasn't getting his work out in the way that people can now. And the same is true of legacy artists.
00:57:52
Speaker
But he, the when it was a family run institution, when I started there 10 and a half years ago as a staff member, we didn't have a logo. there was There was no logo whatsoever. There was no visual tool. There was no there was no toolbox that ah that an arts organization would use to get the word out. And that is because the family just wanted people to... The goal was for everyone to experience the studio in groups of eight at a time. That was it.
00:58:23
Speaker
And that's a wonderful goal and it's one I still retain. But... there weren't back then it was open the doors, let people experience it. And then you're on, you know, it it was a bit of a checklist institution and, and consequently scholarship was not robust. You know, they weren't, the archives were not organized in the way they are now.
00:58:44
Speaker
The collections weren't available for scholarly research in the way that they are now. They hadn't gone out in the world in the way they have now. So I think, I think Wharton got a little bit of a short shrift in, in,
00:58:57
Speaker
what should be his, his status. And, and I think he, he was influenced by artists. That's how it works. The dialogue between no artist has ever not been influenced by another artist. um I think that's beautiful. And, and a way to describe how it all happens.
00:59:17
Speaker
And Esher, I think, believed in that wholly too. And, and he took inspiration and he put it out there and influence and impact and so forth. But I think, you know, we, we, it's it's a It's a few things. It's it's visibility and and us getting the word out and then participating in that scholarly exchange.
00:59:36
Speaker
um And then and I think we're also back to ah you know, I, I, Jackson Pollock bicycling down a country road with a basket full of beer and falling over and just being a disaster.
00:59:51
Speaker
but you know, we watch movies about him and we go to visit his work. There is something that happens posthumously with figures like that where, know, People want to know more and they want to um subscribe more to, to what their lives were and what their impact were. But if you just, if you take that part away and you just look at his legacy, I think we're really just getting started with putting him in the conversation And in our historical context. Interesting. So, sorry, I'm going to do to you what I often do to Eric when he gives me long answers, which is I'm trying to understand the essence of your answer. So he was he is more popular after his death than before. Is that true?
01:00:33
Speaker
I mean, I don't it's hard to say. um yeah i think he's i think he's more visible. OK. yeah And did the success of the studio furniture movement propel him to higher heights than he did previously before it was a thing?
01:00:50
Speaker
Certainly. that's That's what I was thinking when you asked the question and as you were answering, Julie. um The... i Again, I don't want to like over pedestalize him. That's a word I just made up. But like mischievous, he is mischievous, mischievous. He e he did a thing or at least it not to say he did a thing for the first time, but but he did a thing in a way that it wasn't traditionally done yet. And it's only, you know,
01:01:26
Speaker
towards the end of his life and now certainly whatever 50 some odd years ah after his death that we we kind of have the formal structure of what we consider like furniture history, the the furniture studio movement um from him came, you know, the, the Judy McKees of the world, the, the, the Wendell castles of the world, et cetera, et cetera. And so you look back and you go like, well, where did this start?
01:01:53
Speaker
And then I think the natural start point is Nakashima and, and Esherick. And it's coincidental that they were 40 minutes away from one another, but like, Nakashima had this kind of global reach because his career kept like growing and growing in scale and Esherick as did his work. He produced your work. Sure, sure, sure, And there's also this idea. I don't mean to cut you off, there's also this idea of the gatekeepers and that can be the clients that can be the curators, the museum directors, the
01:02:25
Speaker
There's the gallerists. Yeah. They're, you know, that matters. And that can be happenstance. And that can be something that puts somebody's career up here or or let it be known, I just gestured up.
01:02:39
Speaker
Or down here. Julie, how successful was he at the end of his life? That's a really, that you know, Paul, that's a question that we ruminate on a lot.
01:02:51
Speaker
I... i'll give I'll give you a couple of anecdotes and then my and then my own perception. My own perception is that setting out to have the life that he wanted, he was as a success.
01:03:05
Speaker
Financially, he made it. no he took He tried to take a second mortgage out towards the end of his life. The bank probably just laughed at that. His family pulled their resources, bought the property so he wouldn't have to have financial concerns as he was aging.
01:03:20
Speaker
you know, I mean, but that's not a story you don't hear now. and think to People doing other things. He... he
01:03:30
Speaker
I like to try to to dig into whether he thought he was successful. And and the story I tell there, there's there's it's twofold. one At one point, he opted not to attend ah an event where he was going to be recognized but because it required fancy dress.
01:03:49
Speaker
And that was just not of interest to him. um But in in, I don't know what year this was, towards the latter end of his life, When the studio was fully realized, the last edition had come on, etc. He had good friends who who were married.
01:04:06
Speaker
And his wedding gift to them was he went and stayed somewhere else and he gave them a night in the studio. So he knew it was good. um And I think he I think ah back to that anecdote I told earlier about signing his yearbook. I think I'm an artist and then and then saying I am known as an artist. think he had that arc of satisfaction. And he understood and felt comfortable with the fact that his work was really good. And I know enough of you artists to know that that is such a struggle. And sometimes it's maddening as somebody who I have taken furniture and woodworking classes with with Curtis, with our friend Larissa Huff, with all these amazing craft educators, Rob Spies, and they...
01:04:46
Speaker
despite being such good educators, cannot teach me to make this. I'm just, I'm not good at it. I never will be good at it. So, you know, there's there's a there's a settling that you have to do with yourself. And and I think that Ashrick had that. So i I think I would consider him a success for that.
01:05:03
Speaker
hope So successful in in his...
01:05:08
Speaker
Successful in his goal are artistically, but perhaps it wasn't realized financially. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. um Next question.
01:05:21
Speaker
That's a good layered answer, by the way. Yeah. Next question.
01:05:27
Speaker
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is he was he preferred or perhaps came from the art side, and then he had to learn the craft side or employed, what was his name, John?
01:05:40
Speaker
ah yeah but He worked with John Schmidt and then he had apprentices the end. yeah Sure. well im total throughout So they became the crafts people who realized the things into the they made it.
01:05:53
Speaker
They made his vision a reality. And and he did, too, in in some cases. So that brings up this idea of if you're a maker.
01:06:05
Speaker
Are you the artist? Are you the crafts person? Are you both? And what is the value that comes with being both? Is it equally valuable to be one? Like, let's say you're let's let's take the the let's take three cases.
01:06:21
Speaker
but I like to think in terms of like limit cases. The first case is I'm the artist. I'm the idea person. I I have all these ideas churning in my head and I cannot wait to explore them and express these ideas.
01:06:34
Speaker
I may not know how to do that in terms of the craft or in terms of the physicality of it or how to use the tools. That doesn't matter. I have other people who can do that as long as they help me realize my vision. That's one case. The second case is the middle case where I am the artist who...
01:06:50
Speaker
comes up with the idea. And I am the craftsperson who translates it into something real world. And that is me and Eric, for sure. We are both of those things at the same time. And Eric, and and I'm going to let you go, Eric, because I feel like you have a lot to say about this. The making, the craft part informs the art part and the art part informs the craft part. And there is a bi-directional conversation between in your own brain that I thought it was going to be this, but when I made it, it turned out to be that. And then I had these ideas, which turned the art part back on its head and that flipped to what I was making. So there's there's a bi-directionality to being both at the same time. And then there's the third limit case, which is I just like to work with my hands and make shit. I don't know what to make. I don't have particularly compelling ideas on my own.
01:07:40
Speaker
but I love making things and I'm happy to work for an artist who has the ideals. So it's like, are you the artist? Are you the artist and the craftsperson? Or are you the craftsperson? ah Can you, using this framework, both of you, can you, i you know, um Julie, can you tell us where you think Wart and Esherick fits in that framework? And Eric, what's your feeling about that framework for yourself? Mm-hmm.
01:08:08
Speaker
I'd say all three for Esherick because again, he needed um one of the things that kept happening when he had clients coming to see his work and his clients became friends. It's it's something that um is really repeated and I think a a lovely aspect of his personality. But he would have clients over for dinner and they'd have martini, two or three, sit at the dining room table and fall love with that dining room table. He literally, the business of an artist is to sell work and he would literally sell it out from underneath himself and just then remake it. um
01:08:44
Speaker
So, you know, there's a utility to that if you look at it, if you look at it that way. But I guess, i so so he's he's problem solving. Again, we're back to that idea that, i you know, i I just sold my dining room table. I need a new one. I'm a maker. i'm going to make it.
01:08:58
Speaker
So there's a practicality, a utility. There's also this desk. and And for those of you listening, Eric and I have touched on this a couple times. One of Esherick's seminal pieces is called the Fisher desk. If you just Google Fisher desk, Esherick, you will find a lot of articles and images of it. And it's incredible. And, you know, that's that's on them. That's not a I just need a new diner on table. That is something that is, you know, maybe a once in a lifetime work.
01:09:26
Speaker
um And and i for ill I'll put a little personal spin on all of it and just say if this is a conversation I have with kids who come to the Asherick studio a lot. And they and and kids are are super honest, cool little creatures, if they're not yours.
01:09:46
Speaker
And you can you can get into a conversation with them about where the origins of things. Where does something come from? and they'll tell you about this cool thing that they have in their room, this awesome thing. And you say, okay, well, who made it? And they'll say, well, Target did. And you're like, okay, well, let's talk about let's talk about where things come from, how they come to be.
01:10:05
Speaker
And i i think if there wasn't something beautiful in the world, and then there is, that to me seems...
01:10:17
Speaker
and not answering this well. No, but no I think, you know, wait, Julie, let me let me. So wait, so hold on, hold on. So you gave me the answer about he sometimes was the craftsperson. I was at a at a dinner party. I sold the table. We were having martinis on. I got to make a new table. So I got a fucking pony up the effort and make new table. But he's obviously the artist, which is the other extreme where it's like, I come up with the ideas and I didn't know how to make it because then he used John.
01:10:48
Speaker
Sure. To to make sure shit. Yeah. But I'm assuming there's a lot of pieces where he did both. He idea idea ideated the piece and made it himself. Yes. Is that right? so so So your answer is spot on. He did all three of those. And sometimes he did those things for for a practical reason. And sometimes he did that just to make something beautiful.
01:11:06
Speaker
I love it. Hold on. Eric, hold on. Hold off hold on. Go ahead. So you're going to tell her that she answered it terribly and then mansplain her answer back to her and tell her that she nailed the answer? Oh, look. Look, my gender happens to be male. don't Don't do that. My answer happens to be male.
01:11:21
Speaker
She was clearly floundering in a moment. And I just tried to summarize what I was hearing. That is not mansplaining. I was off the rails. He was He was right. I was summarizing. love you. I thought I got to give you the shit. You are the absolute worst. can Can you please now tell us, Eric, how your thoughts about how being the artist or the maker or both informs your process?
01:11:45
Speaker
Um, all three are valuable, uh, stages of a career. And then not to say that they like one escalates to the other, but, but you can, you can inhabit different, each one of those differently, at different moments of your career. And, um, um,
01:12:06
Speaker
I think what I have learned as a teacher is that overwhelmingly, and this is not true 100% across the board, but overwhelmingly, the easier path is to learn the craft and in how to build things and then learn how to manipulate the things that you build into beautiful objects. um So from that perspective, I think the trajectory is is craftsperson, ah designer, craftsperson, artist.
01:12:32
Speaker
ah Eric, did um did Esher come from the opposite of that? Yeah. And and I think a lot of people do. That's why i in in there's a lot of people that I agree with you. I agree with you. I think most woodworkers listening to this podcast do exactly what you said. Yeah. The thing, learn how to build the thing, then why you build the thing and how to how to do emotion that so so the hard part about being an artist or a designer is you're working in ideas and ideas aren't tangible and if you don't have any anchor point uh uh to to tie those ideas to you're just fucking floating in space you're just like trying things and you're like i don't know maybe blue is better than green i don't know why but you have no ability to look at a thing that is uh real and exists in the world and go like this succeeds and this doesn't why or why not. Uh, so you learn how to make things. And then in, in, in reality, like even if you're a painter, like you start off as a kid drawing and then you learn the technique of like how to illustrate a three dimensional thing in two dimensions. Right. So there's, there's technique there to learn. There's craft there to learn. Um, But some people's minds do work in the opposite where they go like, I just have this fucking fire hose of ideas and I have to learn how to put that into a tangible reality. And so they're they're kind of forced to to work backwards. um and it sounds like from what you've described that's how ashrek uh existed in the world of like i just have ideas on ideas on ideas and now i have i've i've discovered this medium of wood in in this three-dimensionality and now i have to figure out like how to take the ideas that exist in my head and enforce them into the constraints of the reality that we live in um And the properties of the material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all of the physical constraints the world. Trying super weird piece of furniture that functions well. Yeah, yeah. Like the cabinet still has to open and close. Absolutely. um
01:14:28
Speaker
For me personally, i I think the sweet spot in this, I think is born more out of limitation than ideal. is the that 50th percentile, that that crossover, the Venn diagram of the maker-designer because I am not good enough of of it of a designer to fully realize the idea until it is in process of being made. And my skill as a craftsman, as a furniture maker, is not... I wish I was better and I've worked in enough cabinet shops to be like...
01:15:04
Speaker
kind of the shitty guy on the floor to know that like if somebody hands me a plan it's probably gonna be off an eighth of an inch you know like it's not i'm not gonna nail it you know so so having the ability to have the idea and more fully realize the idea through the process of creating it in tangible space but then also as a crafts person have the leeway to be like Well, I fucked that up, so now that's a design opportunity. You know? So, like, I think that's why it's my sweet spot, because I'm not good enough to be on the either end of the spectrum.
01:15:37
Speaker
ah I fucked that up. Yeah, yeah. i So, like, let's see. I guess that oh doesn't have a head anymore, you know? So, I have a few thoughts about this idea of the artist or the maker or both. um I would say...
01:15:54
Speaker
Learning to become the maker is for me was much easier than learning to become the artist. I always felt like art designing something beautiful from nothing seems like Mount Everest to me in comparison to like learning how to cut dovetails because there's a technique for that. yeah Yeah, it's a process and anyone can follow that.
01:16:20
Speaker
Whereas learning how to make beautiful, sorry, I missed, I wasn't looking. I said not me and as somebody who has taught her in a class can confirm. Not me. learning to make beautiful art, it's so vague and nebulous. And we talked about this in the last episode of elements of art and principles of design. Yes, there is a grammar underlying good design, but it it still doesn't qualify. quite have the structure of making that you know you can just cut here you know pair to that line connect you know all right so so that's my first thought is art is harder than craft for me personally do an episode on fear in art making yes please
01:17:09
Speaker
Cue it up. Put it on the list, buddy boy. ah The second thought is that...
Joy and Human Connection in Craft
01:17:15
Speaker
If you're the ideator of the design and the executor of said design, those inform each other. And I talked about that when I was kind of setting up the question that while you're making the thing, artistic ideas that you may have had previously shift and morph and change and evolve. So the two are intimately coupled together while you're making it and they inform each other, which is a brilliant idea.
01:17:44
Speaker
interplay between being the artist and the designer at the same time or the the artist and the maker at the same time. That's a brilliant interplay intention that informs in both directions. And I think that leads to the ultimate piece that is really capturing the essence of who you are.
01:18:04
Speaker
right Because you've done both things. You've designed it. You've made it. And while you were making it, you perhaps tweaked the design or remade it. And that's not so easy when it's separate people who may may not have – there may be a communication gap. Whereas when you're the one doing it, there's no communication gap. That's my second thought.
01:18:24
Speaker
Um, and my third thought I forgot. So we're going to, now we're on the same page, buddy. bla yeah I hate, i hate when I, I hate when I forget ideas. Uh, okay. But I do have our third question for Julie on tap.
01:18:38
Speaker
Julie. So this relates to the idea of joy as a design principle. Okay. So i and the I'm sure Julie's well aware, but there's this quote attributed to WordNestrick. The listeners probably don't know this, but all of you do. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
01:19:01
Speaker
And that speaks to the idea of joy. Should or can or should delight be a philosophical criteria for making things? That speaks to a man who has sold more than one dining table ah over a few too many martinis. So should joy be part of your process? Should joy be part of the motivation for making things? How do you, Julie, interpret that quote?
01:19:27
Speaker
Yeah. ah so we use that quote. We put it on a magnet. I think it was probably something... Esherick said once, perhaps in a flippant way, but it's charming. And I do think why we, you know, maybe we can't land on the exact origins of it, but I, I do think that for me, with what I've come to understand about him and the time I've been thinking and reading and writing and, directing my professional energies around him, knowing his family,
01:20:07
Speaker
that he did have fun and that, that, you know, whether, it whether he fucked the thing up and had to start over or, you know, this piece of wood was giving a hard time or something was wrong in the day.
01:20:26
Speaker
He was, he was happy person making things. That was his purpose. And that's what he did. i When people come through the museum, we you know we have a lot of different modalities for delivering what we want people to think, feel, and understand about Esherik when they experience it. then we get people, we are drawing from the public. So you know we get um all kinds of people who come here, disinclined, people who who like woodworking, people who don't like woodworking, people like sculpture, people just looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon. Whatever your life or creative experience is before you come in there, though, I do think that it is really hard to walk through his world.
01:21:16
Speaker
What we what we kind of position as his his creative journey, you know, manifest into a built environment. And then to just go on about your day and not give some real deep reflective thought about, gee, I've been thinking about taking that pottery class at the arts center nearby for the last six years. Why don't I just do it? one so the word the Sorry, the word that comes to mind from what you just said is inspiration.
01:21:44
Speaker
It is inspiration, which is, you know, in my field, in the museum world, you know, we can't, we can't say that. That's... I can't use that word in there. Like, that's what it is, but yeah it's, you know, you need to come up with different ways of packaging that. But you're right, Paul, that's exactly what it is. And and I think...
01:22:04
Speaker
What's so great about it is that when you come in there, one of my favorite objects, our our associate curator and director of interpretation has indulged me and put it on display in the kitchen counter. One of my favorite objects is was not made by Asherick. It's a little oven mitt shaped like a chicken. And it's just the cutest thing ever. And I look at it and I think, how how did this come into his life? what Did he use it all the time? Did he use it with joy?
01:22:30
Speaker
It just, there there is a there are papers in the desks and spoons in the drawer and and his clothes are in the dresser. So you come in and what you feel maybe going into a big box gallery museum with with labels full of didactic text that are sometimes indecipherable and you know the curator's thoughts and people feel can feel intimidated going into to some cultural institutions. But you come into Wharton's house and you really do feel like he's just not home. And I think if you can give yourself a minute to just hang out in there and think about it it causes you to think about how you spend your time and and what the value of the objects around you are. so you drink your coffee out of a mug made by somebody you know in the morning.
01:23:15
Speaker
I do every day. Every fucking day do. Every day. i do exactly that. Even if it's Monday morning and it sucks. And you make your coffee and you're like, I don't want a Monday...
01:23:27
Speaker
I want to go back to bed, but you get that mug out and you, and there's, there is, there is, this is going to sound really lofty, but there is a human connection that is, that is something i we, we really need to elevate in the, in the world. And. Oh, Julie. Yeah.
01:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's i I think that's where the that's where I would say the joy comes from. Paul's heart just started flattering. all I know. I'm like, that was a soliloquy. That was so beautiful. Your answer. I'm like dying here.
01:23:59
Speaker
Eric, you you know who made your mugs? Oh yeah, for sure. yeah fred No, I can't. I can't. No, it's true. Like I, I agree. Fuck everything you said before that. I agree with the last thing you just said, um which is the, the, the need for human connection and understanding and appreciation of objects.
01:24:22
Speaker
I don't know if it's through humans or because of humans. Like, don't, I don't want to say that the human and the objects are like one is better than the other and in yada, yada. But like, yeah, having objects that are made by yourself, by people, you know, by people you love and care about, like that is a thing that brings me ah a huge amount of joy and and makes me smile on like a shitty cold, rainy Monday, you know? And, and, um,
01:24:49
Speaker
And I think craft and the realm of craft, functional objects, handmade objects, takes it all a step further. When you when you look at art, you know there's there's a whole bunch of people who think art should just be pretty.
01:25:02
Speaker
And then there are people who who swim in the art world maybe a little more deeply and they want to be challenged by it. They want to understand what people are saying and look at it as human expression and you know right up on the edge of your comfort level. There's something about craft, though, that is i mean, the materials are very familiar to us and there is there is a capability that you see and appreciate, even if you don't fully understand what it took to make the desk we're sitting at or how long it took or what the goddamn glue up was like.
01:25:33
Speaker
So there's a capability and there's a care that is just this really, really human to human piece of it. So so, yeah, I mean, we call it a joyful handcrafted home. And and I think it's it's a probable thing when you're in there.
01:25:49
Speaker
I don't know how else to end this fucking episode. I feel like they that's that's the banger. That's it That's how we end. I posted in my stories today um a handmade mug by a friend of mine, Kara. And I made a latte and i I accomplished some latte art that I've been working on.
01:26:06
Speaker
in her beautiful mug and I just felt like, I want to post this and care. I just posted to my stories and Kara was like, Oh, thanks for posting. And then I talked to another Potter friend of mine shortly thereafter. And I made her ah a pottery bench many years ago, six, seven years ago, we made a big pottery bench and you know, she, took you know, contacted me about that, but that's all to say that the human connection, and that is this podcast. That's why Eric and I keep coming back to it. Julie, to me, people like you to talk about art and the feel good that comes with craft. You're right. It's so familiar. It's so, it does give the warm and fuzzies and you use the word lofty earlier. And I don't,
01:26:50
Speaker
like that is maybe perhaps a defensive perception, how maybe we're, you know, we were perceived as lofty because we talk about craft in this, in this elevated way, but it really is the ability to feel connected to humans. And you hit the nail on the head when you said, We need it now more than ever. And I can agree more. Right. yeah And I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast and I know so many of them have told me this. They yell at this at the podcast. They like yell in their shop at us as if we, you know, like because they want to be part of this conversation. And I am so thankful that I am.
Conclusion and Appreciation
01:27:29
Speaker
part of this conversation too ah all of us want that piece of connection so i really think you ended on such a great note and we're going to end it on that in the after show what we will talk about and i have more questions for julie is and i'm going to give you a preview of coming attractions is if wharton were still alive and What would you ask him?
01:27:55
Speaker
All right, don't answer. That's for the after show. Okay. What would we talk about? Thanks, y'all. this Thanks, friends. This was illuminating. This is a true pleasure. It was a really, really good one. Julie, thank you were an absolute legend. I told you she's a bad bitch, man.
01:28:11
Speaker
I would not call her that, but you can. ah Julie, thank you. Really, we appreciate you so much. You enabled this amazing discussion. was fun and Wharton would approve.
01:28:24
Speaker
Wharton approved. Wharton approved on that. We'll see in the after show. If you want the after show, subscribe to our Patreon. We'll see you there. Okay, bye. Bye.