May 12, Virtual Meeting

Our next meeting will be virtual, held on May 12, 2021.  Our presenters will be furniture maker William Brown and luthier John Bogdanovich.  We look forward to seeing everyone on May 12.

About guitar maker, John Bogdanovich

 

Guitar maker John Bogdanovich has a background tailor made for guitar building.  John began woodworking and playing guitar at  the age of 12. He  majored in music at what is now Richmond College studying performance and composition, and studied classical guitar privately with Julio Prol.  

 

John served as an  apprentice cabinet maker for 3 years in a well known cabinet shop in New York City training with old world European craftsman. This is where he began to develop the foundation of skills he would later be known for in guitar building.

 

After completing his apprenticeship John returned to college where he  received a BSEE in electrical engineering from Pratt Institute and a MSEE from Polytehcnic University, both in Brooklyn, NY. Upon graduation John worked as a design engineer in research and development at AT&T Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ. and retired after 10 years of service. Then returned to woodworking starting a small business designing and building furniture in Freehold, NJ.  He was a member of the CJWA and served as the very first VP!

 

John studied fine woodworking with James Krenov for two years at the College of the Redwood Fine Woodworking program in Fort Bragg, California. Upon completing the woodworking program took a guitar building class with Charles Fox. John built his first guitar immediately following and began his journey in lutherie.

 

In 2003 John was approached by Sterling Publishing and asked if he would like to author a book on guitar making. He had been given a rare opportunity to share techniques and thoughts about something he loved. This would prove to be a challenging project. In 2006 “Classical Guitar Making: A Modern Approach to a Traditional Design” was released. The book was instantly successful  and is widely accepted as the ultimate reference for building classical guitars. After the books release he was quoted as saying “I just wanted to produce something that I would be proud of.”

John’s website: https://www.jsbguitars.com/ 

About William Brown

 William Brown is the owner of the Maine Coast Workshop, and an 18th Century-style furniture maker. His furniture and carving website:  LineAndBerry.com

He grew up on a farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he apprenticed in the workshop of E. Townsend Moore. During this time he gained a love of fine Pennsylvania-made furniture from the 18th century.

William’s career path took him into the medical field, where he became a successful anesthesiologist, but all the time he continued to build high-end furniture to sell to clients and to beautify his own home. William has been building furniture for over 40 years, which is obvious in the details of his immaculate furniture. 

April 14, Virtual Meeting

Our next meeing will be virtual, held on April 14, 2021.  Our featured speaker will be tool maker Ron Hock and member Bill Woodard’s Bee Shed .  If you are not familiar Ron works with hand tool blades such as custom plane irons;  in addition to his expertise in sharpening, check out his website hocktools.com.   We look forward to seeing everyone on April 14.

March 10, Virtual Meeting

Our next meeing will be virtual, held on March 10, 2021.  Our featured speaker will be internationally known furniture maker Garrett Hack.  We look forward to seeing everyone on March 10.

About Garrett Hack

Garrett Hack is an internationally known furniture maker, educator, writer, and farmer from Thetford, Vermont. As a furniture maker of more than 40 years, he has created his own aesthetic with award winning designs that push his skills to the next level. He’s also an in-demand woodworking instructor, teaching classes in Germany, England, Austria, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, and Japan.  Hack has a great love of hand tools of all shapes and sizes, and uses them to great affect in everything he builds, sculpting delicate details by eye.He is a contributing editor at Fine Woodworking and has written two books,The Handplane Book and Classic Hand Tools

February 10, Virtual Meeting 7 PM

Our next meeting with be virtual, held on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.  Our featured speaker will be  woodcarver Mary May. Just a reminder to our members, please mute yourself upon entering the meeting to eliminate extraneous noises and unmute only when speaking.  We look forward to seeing everyone on February 10. 

About Mary May

Acclaimed for her ability to incorporate intricate details (think scrolls, shells, fleurs-de-lis, swirling waves, quatrefoils and ball-and-claw feet) into traditional furnishings and architectural implements, May’s repertoire ranges from iconic Charleston rice beds to the historic mantels she restores and reproduces for 18th-century residences throughout the peninsula–in period-appropriate styles such as Federal and Rococo.

Born in the Midwest to a carpenter father, May caught the carving bug while studying fine art and ceramics in London, where she was routinely awed by the ornamentation of surrounding palaces, country houses and cathedrals. Back home in Minneapolis, she apprenticed three years under Greek-born master carver Konstantinos Papadakis, who encouraged her to train under one of his contemporaries in Athens before she furthered her studies at the City & Guilds of London Art School. May’s work, mostly in wood but occasionally in stone, enjoys high demand in Charleston’s ecclesiastical and residential spheres; two of her loftiest commissions to date include slate memorial stones for the Holy City’s famed French Huguenot Church and a chimneypiece she meticulously restored with contractor Richard “Moby” Marks for a circa-1764 home on Legare Street.

January 13 Virtual Meeting 7 PM

Our next meeting will be virtual, held on Wednesday, January 13, 2021.  Our featured speaker will be Kathy Gillis.  With Conservator Kathy Z. Gillis as our guide, we will take an interactive tour of several current projects underway in the Furniture Conservation Laboratory at Winterthur Museum.  All members, please mute yourself upon entering the meeting to eliminate extraneous noises and unmute only when speaking.  We look forward to seeing everyone on January 13.

About Kathy Gillis

Kathy Gillis graduated from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC) in 1993. Kathy has worked with the furniture collections at Colonial Williamsburg, The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and served as the Head of Conservation at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Her research includes the European influences on American Furniture, Art Nouveau, Chinese and Indian export furniture, and John Henry Belter. Kathy was the World Monuments Fund Conservator in Residence for the fall 2018 semester of the CRAFT program in Beijing, China, co-sponsored by the Palace Museum and Tsinghua University. Kathy joined the Winterthur Museum staff on March 16, 2020.