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From the August 2011 issue #191
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Don Williams is a Washington, D.C.-based conservator, educator, author, and finisher, and has over the past 40 years worked on preserving and restoring some of the most interesting objects in our nation’s public and private collections. He has written, lectured and demonstrated on an array of subjects related to conservation, woodworking, and historical wood finishing. In his spare time he passionately pursues varied interests, including economics, metal casting, collecting obscure books and tools, and Japanese gardening, all of which usually occur against an audio backdrop of Little Feat, classic jazz or podcast lectures.
His current projects include the almost finished relocation/reconstruction of a 19th-century timber frame barn as a studio/classroom/fortress at his remote mountain
retreat (complete with its own micro-hydropower system), replicating the chairs of Samuel Gragg, restoring a 17 century Italian marquetry cabinet, fabricating a pair of Federal knife boxes, building a japanned Queen Anne highboy, and a thus far unsuccessful escape from the clutches of Schwarzomania (the compulsive building of new workbenches. Now, where did I put that other Emmert vise…)
He is working on six non-fiction books – To Make as Perfectly as Possible, two annotated
volumes of Roubo translation (first due around Christmas 2011); A Furniture Conservation
Primer; The Handbook of Period Finishes; Virtuoso: The Toolbox and Workbench of Henry O. Studley; and Conservation of Tortoiseshell – and another half dozen works of fiction including one which unsurprisingly revolves around the adventures of a modern furniture restorer who discovers world-changing secrets hidden in an antique cabinet, and another whose handyman protagonist is an idiot savant. These will join his wildly successful SAVING STUFF: How to Care for and Preserve Your Collectibles, Heirlooms, and Other Prized Possessions (Fireside/Simon&Schuster, 2005) on bookshelves worldwide.
From the August 2011 issue #191
Buy this issue now
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