Library in the Summer: Woodwork, Design & Craft Video Dictionary

This summer Craft in America invites you to the Center’s woodwork, furniture, and historic design exhibition. Our Building Blocks: Process in Wood show highlights both regional and international artistry across cultures and time periods, focused on handworked wood fabrication. Complementing this dynamic show, we encourage visitors to learn more about our dynamic and educational Craft Video Dictionary woodworking videos and library-magazine woodworking displays.

Library Highlights on Woodworking

Our easy-access craft art library features regularly rotating displays, and our range of materials span from rare books, artist monographs, exhibition catalogs, art-magazines, to craft-techniques/technical manuals.

This summer’s featured woodworking books on display range from the 18th Century American Shakers woodworking and legacy designs, to American Mid-Century Modern legacy schools of woodworking (a la The Furniture of Sam Maloof, header image), to more internationally renown sculptural/vessel focused approaches to wood fabrication (a la Keiko Hirohashi’s design book Wood Package). We’ve also pulled woodworking periodicals dating back decades, including magazine runs from 1970’s-2020’s American Craft, 1980’s Woodworker’s Journal, 1980’s Fine Homebuilding, Fine Woodworking 1980’s-90’s, Woodworker West (2007-2023), and more — all previewed below!

The American Shakers and Their Furniture in (1982) black and white format, boasts fascinating historic perspectives on this ascetic, minimalist-design oriented religious community’s contributions to woodworking and design over the last 200 years. This book features dynamic, near timeless diagrams, measurements, and instructions for recreating their highly functional and visually stunning wood-based pieces centuries later. Nodding to this lineage, our Woodwork exhibition also features artist Ryan Taber’s Stofa Pattern #2 after Tony Smith’s Batcave 1969-1971 and the Shaker Super Heater, 1820-1830; made from White Pine.

Hand-caned geometric seat cushions found within The American Shakers and Their Furniture book, by John G. Shea — The American Shakers and Their Furniture book, (John G. Shea, 1982)

diagram and gridded measurement instructions for how to build a candle sconce-shelf from the book The American Shakers and Their Furniture, by John G. Shea — The American Shakers and Their Furniture book, (John G. Shea, 1982)

Wood Package, highlights innovative Keiko Hirohashi’s design and surreal woodwork. Much like Martin Alexander’s own cultural woodwork homage and nod to the playful interpretation of wood as both a sculptural and playfully reverent “Florecita” vessel, Hirohashi’s work explores whimsical and diasporic design of wood containers. Wood Package asks each viewer to consider how woodworking forms and their outer layers are just as important (vessels) as to what is housed within.

book cover of Wood Package by Keiko Hirohashi — Wood Package (Keiko Hirohashi, 1987)

multicolored, surreal colorful wood boxes with various wheels and bauble details; from Wood Package book, by Keiko Hirohashi

black and red/maple ornate figurine boxes in the shame of silhouettes, body parts, and jumping cats; from Wood Package book, by Keiko Hirohashi

Come visit us and browse our extensive craft library! With over over over 3000 books, exhibition catalogs, and more than 2000 periodicals dedicated to the art of craft and related topics — there’s something here to delight any curious reader. Come visit us this summer and explore the expansive world of craft art and woodworking!

Colorful magazine covers of Crafts, Woodwork, Fine Woodworking, and various Furniture woodworking journals — Periodical Sampling: Crafts, Woodwork, Fine Woodworking, and various Furniture woodworking journals