Featured Member: Nathaniel Newcomb
Nathaniel Newcomb is a woodworker and current MFA student at Virginia Commonwealth University. He lives and works in Richmond, VA.
We caught up with Nathaniel to hear more about his background and interests within the furniture field.
Tell us a little about yourself — where you’re based and how you got started making furniture.
I live and work in Richmond, VA. I knew I wanted to make furniture after seeing some Frank Lloyd Wright chairs and Michele De Lucchi’s First Chair in person on the car ride back from Oklahoma to see my parents. At that time I had no craft training whatsoever, but my curiosity was so strong that I would take home furniture being thrown away and take it apart to understand how it was made. I taught myself woodworking and made a few pieces of furniture, until I was able to get a job at an antique reproduction furniture shop. I did something like a traditional apprenticeship there, and I left when I realized I didn’t want to make traditional furniture.
What inspires your work? Who are some of your inspirations for furniture making?
I’m largely inspired by prehistoric art, like tools and megaliths. But I’m also inspired by how wood is wasted in our society. I started developing my own style of large blocky pieces of wood when I brought home logs that were being thrown away. I would carve them just like that, or mill them into unusually large slabs. It became a passion, and almost everything I make now comes from logs that would have ended up in the dump, or at best, as firewood.
What does being a member of The Furniture Society mean to you?
Maybe it’s cliched but I really feel like TFS is a great community. I went to my first TFS conference in Syracuse this past summer with a grant and it was incredible; not only did I learn so much, but everyone was so welcoming and kind. I can’t wait for the next one.
Tell us about your preferred way of connecting with clients and customers.
I prefer to connect with clients in person and get to know them, but I am happy to make sales anyway that I can. Sometimes that’s on Instagram. I have attended the Craft + Design show for the past two years and have really enjoyed it. I’ve been invited to other craft markets but their booth fees are often prohibitive.
Do you have a specific joinery technique, favorite tool, or favorite wood that you like? Why?
I love my Stihl chainsaws and Pfeil gouges. Those are the real workhorses for most of my pieces. I like every wood that I’ve worked with except poplar. If I had to pick one wood forever though it would be oak. The good qualities of that wood cannot be overstated: it’s beautiful, durable, hard, and even smells good. But most important for my work, it’s common. I like using woods that are all around us because I want to show the beauty there. Exotic woods are, I think, unnecessary and often irresponsible. Joinery is often a problem for me because of the scale that I work at. Mortise and tenon is what I use the most but it’s usually hidden. Somewhat recently for a piece I joined two slabs together with huge finger joints, which might be my favorite joint so far.
Check out Nathaniel’s profile page and follow him on Instagram