The woodworking art of Stewart Paul

For 17 years, Stewart Paul hauled around his handcrafted wooden tables, boxes and cabinets to craft shows in a big 1971 Plymouth station wagon. He dragged them around so much that they took as much a beating as Paul himself.

But he wasn’t able to make much of an income from the pieces of cherry, walnut, benge and birch that he had honed into beautiful works of functional art. He grew weary and indifferent to it, and decided to end this ritual.

So he put away his tools and machinery, and shuttered the woodworking shop that had consumed his life. He eventually sold his equipment and rented the shop to another woodworker.

“I worked from 1973 to 1990 full time in my shop,” Paul said, “making the most minimal income, living cheaply, no insurance, driving cars 10 years old.”

I learned of Stewart Paul two years ago when several pieces of his furniture came up for sale at auction. The auctioneer/owner directed me to the works because he knew that I would be as curious about the maker as he was. So I wrote a blog post about the furniture, but could find out very little about Paul himself.

Recently, a former neighbor of Paul’s read my blog post and put me in touch with him. Paul has spent the last 24 years working in home improvement – building closets, tiling floors, finishing basements, installing windows and doors. Now, he says, he’s on the verge of retirement and plans to return to woodworking, starting from where he left off.

Here’s what Paul had to say about his years as a woodworker:

Why did you quit woodworking after so many years?

I didn’t love it anymore. I didn’t hate it. I just had enough.

Do you think you weren’t able to make a living because you didn’t market your work?

I think that is part of it. I would put things in craft galleries and the prices in some would be doubled my prices. I sold pieces that were priced ridiculously low.

Did you try selling at craft shows?

Yes, the best craft shows are the hardest to get into. Those rare times I got into them I did very well. But it was never dependable. One of the best of all is the Philadelphia (Museum of Art) Craft Show. I tried to get into that 13 times; I got in twice.

How did those five pieces end up at auction?

All of the pieces were bought by one person (an antiques dealer). They were bought about five, seven years ago. I got his name through a third party. He ended up buying over a three-year period at least 10 pieces that were all made in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The prices I got were acceptable prices from him but low. He bought every piece I showed him. Some pieces had damage from being dragged around from craft galleries to craft shows to art centers. So he bought them as is and refinished them.

What do you think of the prices he got for them?

They all sold for higher prices than I sold them for. It doesn’t bother me a bit. I could never get those prices (on my own) anyhow anyway. There was a wooden box that was not much higher-priced than I would’ve asked for when I made it. I think there was a simple chair that was maybe just a hundred dollars more than what I sold it for.

Did you always want to be an artist? How did you get started?

When I was a kid (he was born in 1951) I always had paints or crayons and stuff. I had a set of watercolors and colored pencils, drawing pencils in black lead. (At Northeast High School) I took Hebrew as a language but I kept flunking it. Because I kept repeating it, I couldn’t be an art major in high school.

Back then the Philadelphia school system had art classes on Saturday mornings, which are long gone but they were great. I took the art classes all three years of high school.

So I went to art school at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). It was terrific. It was heaven. I tried to take as many art history classes as I could.

I was an industrial design major, which was a waste of time. I took that because that profession is a combination of art and science. You make models of your product if you’re doing product design. You have to communicate your ideas with art skills. There’s always technology behind every product.

It didn’t turn out to be what I thought it was while in school. The first year I got out (he graduated in 1972), I had a job in an industrial design office that was just so-so.

How did you make the switch from industrial design to woodworking?

I took woodworking the last year I was there and I really got hooked. You make the real piece. You buy the wood from the woodshop, you’re taught everything from scratch. The first project in that woodworking class was a dovetail box. In industrial design, you were only making drawings of things that are mass-produced.

The thing about wood, too, is it’s a beautiful material. You start out with rough lumber you buy from the saw mill; the saw mill saws up the logs into boards; the boards are dried and kilned; you buy it, but you can’t make anything out of it until it’s dressed properly. When you use these great woods that are so interesting, it’s a whole different experience than making a model.

I understand you studied under Daniel Jackson?

That’s wrong. He taught woodworking in the woodworking department, but I had Bob (Robert) Worth who was the other woodworking instructor. (Jackson was an important figure in American studio furniture-making.)

When I took that woodworking course the last year, I knew nothing about wood and what you could do with it. Aside from being shown and learning many technical skills, the purpose and proper use of woodworking machines and specialized hand tools, even something as mundane as the proper way to sand wood, it was Bob Worth’s constant enthusiasm, optimism and availability that made the course so wonderful. There wasn’t a question that he couldn’t answer.

When that school year was coming to an end, I had no doubt that I wanted to set up my own shop. It seemed like an overwhelming goal. It was the many conversations that I had with Bob and seeing his own great shop that made everything seem doable. My old friend and woodworker Dick (Richard) Kagan also gave me valuable information about setting up a woodworking shop. (Kagan is now a professional photographer who was a woodworker for years.)

How would you characterize your style?

If you graduated from woodworking during that period of time, you tended to have a certain kind of look to your work.

And what was that look?

Bad copies of what your instructors did.

Looking at Worth and Jackson’s work and yours, they all are similar. How would you characterize that style?

I guess you could say modern. (It’s also called studio furniture, singular pieces hand carved by artisans). One of the pieces (in the auction) was a piece I did in school. It was a cherry table. It looked like the tail of an animal. The chair could’ve been the most recent piece. I don’t think anything on that auction site is older than ‘85, I think maybe even ’82.

When you’re creating a piece, what do you have in mind in terms of what you want it to signify?

It’s real hard (to say).  I would do three or four pieces, and then try to make a change in the look instead of just keep doing the same kind of shapes over and over. So I think every third or fourth piece I would make some changes.

Your pieces have grooves and cutouts. Are those elements always common in what you do?

I always like to have different levels of surfaces, like a certain height, then some wood would be removed, kind of a lower level. I always liked sharp lines, like the table that had two wings. You can see some sharp lines on it.

Do you do studies of your work?

I do drawings. I would do a three-dimensional drawing, then I would do what would be called “working drawings,” which are like lines. Whatever size the finished pieces were, the working drawings would be the full size of the piece. You literally transfer the drawing onto bare wood.

You used some exotic woods on the pieces at auction. Tell me about your choice of wood.

Most of the wood on those pieces, I would say, half are from the United States and half are foreign woods. They were kind of expensive then; now I can’t imagine buying some of the woods that I used in the ‘70s. I would see other woodworkers using these woods I’d never heard of, and I thought there’s more wood out there besides cherry, walnut and maple.

What precipitated the desire to return to woodworking?

When I stopped woodworking, within a year or two, I started to draw. I always had an art background and the drawings are very abstract, pencil and ink, black and white. They’re very time-consuming. It’s a very sedentary activity to sit at a desk and draw for eight hours a day in fine detail. Just to get through one day of drawing without falling asleep over my desk became a problem. I’d had to fight off drowsiness because the activity was so non-physical.

Then I started thinking woodworking was never like that ‘cause it’s all physical. I definitely am going to set up a shop again (after he retires) and I’m going to end up buying everything I sold.

How long did it normally take you do to a piece?

Average in that kind of style might be 40 hours.

I noticed that you didn’t sign the pieces in the auction. Why not?

I never signed anything or very few. It’s hard to explain. There was so much effort and sweat and toil in each piece. Sanding is one of the most miserable jobs you can do. That’s what makes a piece (go) from unfinished to professional level – sanding the piece well. I felt like by the time the piece was finally completed there was so much effort put into it that signing was not important.

But no one would ever know that Stewart Paul made these?

I know. But when I made them I didn’t think I’d be talking to someone 30 years later.

Will you sign your new pieces?

I probably would, only because I’m so much older now.