Dylan needed a few extra hands this last weekend and, well, we have four that were just flappin' around in the breeze, so we took them to his shop in SF to help out in a bit of a crunch.Gradually, Dylan has been building up clients and connections and a reputation for wonderful furniture design and craftsmanship. It's a bit of a roller coaster, trying to work out materials/labor/costs issues, waiting for delayed payments, scheduling deadlines, and, the last couple of months, renovating a new, larger shop/office space into an efficient, highly-functional work environment. On top of that, their computer-controlled CNC Router machine, an older model, but a tool on which Dylan relies heavily, tries to throw in its own design ideas from time to time which requires lots of extra persuasive power (in time and materials) from Troy and Dylan to correct.
One of the ways Dylan has gotten attention from the furniture world has been to travel to conferences and show his work. He's been selling pieces from an online catalog, Artful Home, and will be placing some pieces in a few local furniture galleries as soon as he has the time to make them. One nearby outlet of a nation-wide chain of furniture galleries, DWR (Design Within Reach-http://www.dwr.com/) hosted a local design competition a couple of weeks ago. Out of ten winning pieces, Dylan had three and his will be the star features for an event Thursday evening. The catch was that he would need to have the actual physical pieces to show at the gallery. Plus, he had to ship another order ("Twist" shelves) last week and handle an array of other tasks, as well.
He was close to being able to manage it on his own (he outsources some of the finish work), but we offered some help for the weekend and he took us up on it. The last month or so, Tom has been learning new web-design skills with which to help Dylan build his own new site, which he wants to have ready by Thursday. So, that's how Tom spent most of the weekend. I was extra hands. We arrived at the shop Saturday morning, crashed at Dylan's Saturday night, and worked until about 11pm Sunday.
It was great to see how he works on these specific pieces. Each is quite different from the other and are designs I've posted here before, with the exception of the coffee table. The "Stink Tree" table was nearly ready for Piper-the-finisher when we arrived Sat morning and Tom and Dylan got it over to her shop. The "Cornered" coffee table was cut out and partly veneered, and the "Twist" shelves were cut, but still sitting on the CNC bed.
Over the course of the weekend, we got "Cornered" assembled, veneered and over to Piper for finishing. And by the time we left on Sunday night, "Twist" was nearly put together. In the photos, you see me sanding "Twist" segments as I pry them off the CNC (one of my main jobs during the weekend was to try to correct some unauthorized creativity on the part of the CNC). Then, there's Tom hard at work on the website. Next is a picture of Dylan trimming walnut veneer on "Cornered". All three of us worked on gluing the "Twist" pieces into boxes (they don't have backs, yet, in this photo), and, finally, in the clean-up phase, that's me and my friend, DAP Contact Cement (which is how the veneer is stuck to the surface of "Cornered").
We had fun. Dylan was kind enough to make us think we helped a bit (who raised that nice young man?). He still has quite a lot of work to do (much of it marketing stuff) these next three days, but it seems manageable. All sorts of industry folks and potential clients will be attending the event on Thursday. So will we. It will be the first stop in a five-day loop to SoCal for us (the details of which we're still working out).
We're proud of Dylan and his work. We think he has big potential in his chosen field. Stay tuned.
