Furniture Society Oral History B. P. Johnson 10/16/16 Building Community: An Oral History of the Furniture Society Generous support for this project was provided by Vin Ryan, Ron Abramson, and Toni Sikes. The Furniture Society expresses its gratitude for their vision and financial contributions. Narrator: Bebe Pritam Johnson (BPJ) Interviewer: Jonathan Binzen (JB) Date: October 16, 2016 Location: Mount Desert, ME Subject: Furniture Society Oral History Duration: 01:25:45 00:00:00 JB: Here we are on October 16, 2016 in Mt. Desert, Maine, and we’re recording for the oral history project for the Furniture Society. Anything else? BPJ: No. I think that establishes who, what, where. But the why part we haven’t… JB: No, we haven’t. What is the why? BPJ: Why are we in conversation? JB: And we’re in the sun, outside, on a beautiful day. I was wondering if you could talk about how you first became aware of the Furniture Society and how that went. Maybe a little about what you were doing when you first heard about the idea. BPJ: Well I recall vividly where I was and what I was doing. I had been invited by Albert LeCoff, Woodturning Center, to give a talk in Philadelphia. I don’t remember what the occasion was exactly, but he wanted the subject of the talk to revolve around collecting. A subject I felt I had—this was now some 20 years ago, plus--little enough to offer. So I knew that I would have to do research. I would have to invest some time in coming up with a 40-minute talk on a subject that he gave me more credit for having knowledge of than I actually deserved. 1 Furniture Society Oral History B. P. Johnson 10/16/16 And I worked hard on that talk, and I delivered the talk. And, you know, after the talk a few people come up and they say a few kind things. And there was one person who came up, a quiet- spoken man, he had white hair. He didn’t say anything about my talk—I was a little disappointed, because I had put a lot of thought into it. But he was talking about something else--it was like a parallel conversation we were having. He was talking about this organization, not yet completely an organization, but in the process of becoming one. And he wanted me to become involved in this organization. He spoke very quietly but persistently. And then I realized that I better start listening closely to what he was describing. Because it was an organization in which furniture makers had already come together and had a meeting, actually, in Philadelphia. He referred to them as a steering committee. He didn’t have a name tag on that I could read, and I finally said, Well, don’t you think we should introduce ourselves? I’m Bebe Johnson. And he said, I’m Dennis FitzGerald. So he stalked me, I would say, to become involved in this organization that he and Sarah McCollum, and Peter Handler, and he named other people—none of whom I knew. And I didn’t have an instant understanding of the need for such an organization. I’d never been involved with a start-up organization. But for some reason, the words at our initial meeting and…our initial communications…he got me engaged to come to the first conference, which was held at SUNY Purchase—what would that have been, 1998? 00:05:47 I somehow got myself to Purchase, and I started bumping into people that I did know, or had heard of. Like Garry Bennett, or Ursula Newman—she was at the American Craft Museum…and I realized that through all of the cacophony there was some kind of a seed of active engagement. There were so many different things going on simultaneously: you had shop demonstrations, you had lectures, you had artist presentations. Three or four things happening at the same time. Programmatically I couldn’t figure it out. But you were just swept away into this extremely well- thought-out, highly intelligent program of activities over three intense days. And then of course the sidebar conversations with the furniture makers or the other dealers or curators, or writers. And Ned Cooke and I, I think, landed there at about the same time. I suspect Ned’s experience— I bet it was with Dennis, too—parallels mine, that there was the invitation to come, but it wasn’t an easily ignorable thing. There was something compelling about the reason to be there, and once you were there in the midst of it, you began to see why such an organization was needed. I learned later that other mediums, like glass, and clay, and metal and fiber all had standing organizations that spoke for—that were really advocates for the material that the artist-craftsmen chose to work with. And furniture makers didn’t. I think it was Kristina Madsen who put it so well, she said there’s such an inbuilt comradery among furniture makers. It was so clear that there was a thirst for this kind of gathering, communal sharing of values, and why are we doing what we are doing. And it was the Furniture Society in many important ways that quenched that thirst. I think after Purchase I never questioned why such an organization was necessary; we just took that as a given. 2 Furniture Society Oral History B. P. Johnson 10/16/16 I think the steering committee did a masterful job. I don’t know where they got the experience; I don’t know where Dennis got the experience. Or Sarah. But in the structuring of an organization, the intelligence of how they went about doing it. Of course, for the conference to happen annually; to have the conference broken into the workshops and demonstrations, the hands-on satisfying a great quotient of the membership; the more theoretical, conceptual, with Brian Gladwell and Ned pioneering the Critical Discourse series. The exhibitions, which always were in attendance with conference. Exhibitions broken into the Members Gallery, where you could just pull whatever it is you’re working on from your shop and have it put on show. The invitational or juried shows got a little more esoteric, but they were always made to be joined at conference as part of the mainstay conference structure. 00:10:45 Then the publications—John Kelsey and Rick Mastelli, of course knowing each other from Fine Woodworking days, brought a very powerful dimension and depth to the Furniture Society. The need for print to actually document the passage of time that these furniture makers were bringing with them. To document their experience into print. And then I remember the first board meeting. The thing about the Furniture Society—and I’ve served at Haystack on the board, and the difference between the two organizations is absolutely amazing. Haystack is extremely well organized, extremely well funded. Under Stu Kestenbaum extremely well directed. There was a consistency of directorship, because Stu was there for 25, 26 years. I always got the sense when I showed up at a board meeting that pretty much everything had been determined. And I wasn’t every quite certain why I was there. I was on the program committee, but it seemed to me the programs had already been determined for the next three, four years henceforth. As contrasted to the Furniture Society. As a board member everything had to be done. Programs, exhibitions, nominations. I was also on nominations at Haystack and I got the sense the names were already pretty well cast. With the Furniture Society the net was open; you were always casting for those who would be willing not just to sit at the board, but to work. And I think you always felt, as a member of the Furniture Society board, that there was something that needed to be done. And if you were committed—as the boards, as far as I know, are pretty well committed—there’s no slack. I remember Ron Abramson, who I cajoled to get onto the board, he came to visit Warren and me and he said—because I became such a voice for the Furniture Society, and I was talking away at it—and Ron said, I’m not worried about this board; I’m worried about the next board and the next board. Are you going to be able to have that same kind of energy and commitment? And of course it was a question I couldn’t answer. But as years went on, I began to see the wisdom of the question. So I’ve now forgotten what your question was, Jon. 3 Furniture Society Oral History B. P. Johnson 10/16/16 JB: Well it was just pull the thread, and there we go. But one other question I had was what your role was at the beginning. Were you involved with the Furniture Society before the Purchase conference, or were you just attending and that conference was what really enlightened you about what the Society was and whether you’d want to be involved. BPJ: The latter. Dennis’s job, I think, was to get me to the conference, and then he probably felt pretty confident, since he was the conference chair, that programmatically there would be enough there that it would engage somehow. And he probably then, being an extremely capable vice-president…could recognize worker bees and non-worker bees.