The Maker's Hand

WALKER WEED '40: A craftsmanreveals the sacred within wood.

"If it all comes down to philosophy, I think wood is a sacred material that must be used with love. Its look, feel and smell are important."

So says Weed, lifelong woodworker whose work is currently in the Boston Museum of Fine Art exhibit, "The Maker's Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940- 1990." The show presents studio furniture by major themes of decade; Weed's work, a desk crafted in 1956, is displayed in the section on "A Reverence for Wood: The Beginning of the Studio Furniture Movement." (Also on display—in the "Experimentation and Innovation" section—is a roll-top desk by Arthur Espenet Carpenter '42, who after graduation began woodworking in San Francisco without any prior training. Carpenter's work is known for its "functionality, durability, simplicity, sensuality and practicality," according to the book published in conjunction with the exhibit.)

"It is interesting to be categorized as part of the 'studio furniture' movement," says Weed, recognized as one of the movement's founders, "because I have not thought a lot about where I fit in. I was just making furniture."

Weed has been "just making furniture" since he was 12 and selling tables to his extended family. In 1948 he opened his first shop in Gilford, New Hampshire, obtaining customers through word-of- mouth advertising and displays in galleries. His simple, durable work has been influenced by early American and Shaker design, as well as Scandinavian design he learned while living and working in Norway in the 1960s.

In 1964 Weed returned to Dartmouth to direct the crafts programs in the Hopkins Center, which included woodworking, pottery and metallurgy studios and grew to include a jewelry-making studio. He directed the programs and taught in the woodworking shop until his retirement in 1981, when the Hood Museum of Art displayed his work. He estimates that during his tenure more than one-third of the students used the extracurricular crafts shops, which he saw as an integral part of their education: "You can fumble through a paper, but you can't do that with a craft. It'll be there and you have to look at it."

Weed now lives in Etna with his wife, Hazel, in a house full of his creations. He continues to work in his shop and the Dartmouth woodworking shop, creating furniture for his home and friends.