Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at 6:00pm

Doug Stowe’s April 5th presentation will revolve around two ideas, with one being the design of work, and the other the design of life. With the release of his new book, The Wisdom of our Hands, Doug will discuss the role of the woodworker in the construction and preservation of human culture and building community. On the one hand, we may be wondering how to make a better box. On the other are underlying imperatives urging us toward making life itself better for us all and for each other.

He’ll start the presentation with examples of boxes along with an explanation of the principles and elements of design that help us to design more meaningful work. And of course, those principles and elements are rooted in deeper human forces that we will discuss in the framework, “The Wisdom of Our Hands.”

Please visit his website at DougStowe.com, and/or visit his blog wisdomofhands.blogspot.com. It covers the last 16 years of teaching and exploring the relationship we have with our hands, so in it can be found reflections on work in his own shop, working with kids at the Clear Spring School, work on various woodworking books, and teaching woodworking to adults.

He also has many videos on his YouTube Channel.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 at 7:00pm

Aspen’s artwork is exhibited nationally and is published in Fine Woodworking Magazine, Architectural Digest, Popular Woodworking, Luxe Magazine, Lost Art Press Blog, American Period Furniture, and others. She serves on the board of A Workshop of Our Own and as an ambassador to the Board of Fine Woodworking Magazine. She has received support for her work from The Windgate Foundation, Winterthur Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and others and is the recipient of the 2020 Mineck Furniture Fellowship from The Society of Arts & Crafts.

Aspen is also the founder of The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, a project designed to increase equity and access in the field of chairmaking. Funded by The John D. Mineck Foundation and The Society of Arts & Crafts.

Aspen does domestic and international commission work for designers such as Beata Heuman in the UK, The Harvard Design Project in Boston, MA and Building Preservation Associates in Nantucket, MA.

Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 6:00pm

Roy Underhill is a renown American woodworker and television show host, and was the first master housewright at the Colonial Williamsburg reconstruction. Since 1979, he has been the host of the PBS series The Woodwright’s Shop. Along with This Old House, which debuted the same year, it is the longest running PBS “how-to” show.

He is the author of several books, including “The Woodwright’s Eclectic Workshop” and “Woodwright’s Shop: A Practical Guide to Traditional Woodcraft”. In 2011 he gave a presentation at TEDx Raleigh, sharing the value of ingenuity and living in the present.

Underhill has started teaching traditional woodworking in a classroom environment he calls “The Woodwright’s School”. Many hand tool aficionados hold Underhill in extremely high regard and refer to him with the shorthand “St. Roy.”

Roy will demonstrate how to lay out and cut the classic through dovetail, the half-blind
dovetail for drawers, and the rising dovetail (just to irritate people). We’ll cover many
variations in technique and the reasoning behind them. You’ll learn the three joints as well as
the foundation skills for continued work.

Tuesday, January 4, 2022 at 6:00pm

Happy New Years!! As we charge forward into 2022, we’re kicking off the year with a wonderful presenter and exceptionally talented woodworker, Michael Fortune (check out his website here). Michael will discuss his approach to design and its importance to his woodworking craft.

The meeting is starting an hour earlier than normal to accommodate Michael, as he will be presenting from his shop in Ontario.