Lost Art Press -- Publishers of Traditional Woodworking Techniques

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Peter Follansbee was sitting next to me at some crazy high-end pizza restaurant I’d found for us in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and we were waiting for planemaker Matt Bickford to arrive.

I had two goals for the night. No, three. One: Eat some good pizza. Two, seal the deal with Bickford to publish his forthcoming book on moulding planes (stay very tuned). And three, try to open the door with Follansbee so he might publish something with Lost Art Press some day.

My strategy: Get Follansbee totally high on beer and animal-flesh pizza.

Then Peter notified me in a kind way that he neither drinks nor eats animals.

Well, crap.

Somehow I was able to keep his attention during the meal and make my case for the way we publish books at Lost Art Press. It’s really quite bass-ackwards compared to the rest of the publishing industry, but that’s not the point of this story.

Within a month or so, we’d made a deal to publish the long-awaited follow-up to John Alexander’s “Make a Chair from a Tree.” This new book, “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree,” had been in the works for more than 20 years. Follansbee and Alexander (now Jennie Alexander) have been corresponding and visiting and traveling together for more than two decades to piece together how furniture was built in the 17th century.

When I entered the picture last year they had a preliminary manuscript and photos that spanned the years.

So the question at hand was: Could this be a book?

The answer: Holy cow. Absolutely.

“Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” is like no other woodworking book ever published. It breaks new ground with every page. It shows you things you’ve never seen before. It will change the way you think about wood and woodworking.

Notes from the Shop at Lost Art Press

In the Works from Lost Art Press

We have a long list of books in the works here at Lost Art Press. Here are some of the titles that we are working on for 2012:

“Mouldings in Practice” by Matt Bickford. I simply cannot understand why this book such as this one has never been published before. It explains how to make mouldings with hollows and rounds in a straightforward manner that has never ever been put to paper. This book will change how thousands of woodworkers make their mouldings. The book is written. The drawings drawn. The photos done. And it is in our hands here at Lost Art Press.

“By Hand & Eye” (a preliminary title) by George Walker and Jim Tolpin. This book will be delivered to us by June and should be out by fall. I have been involved with the authors as they have shaped the content of the book. It is like nothing else out there. Period.

“Of Furniture of Elemental Design” by Christopher Schwarz. This book is moving quickly. Its modest goal: To change the furniture designed and built by woodworkers in the Western world. I have been sifting through thousands of furniture designs for months now in order to decode the genome – for lack of a better word – of our furniture record. I fully expect to fail, but to fail spectacularly.

“To Make as Perfectly as Possible” A translations of Andre Roubo's writings on marquetry by Don Williams and a team of translators, researchers and woodworkers. Our plan is to have this book ready for Christmas 2012. Stay tuned.