Popular Woodworking 2009-12 № 180, страница 27

Designer and builder of elegant but simple iconic furniture.

ignorance. But I could not keep this from my kids.

I have now seen that film well over 50 times and have learned something with each viewing. At that time, I did not know about pattern shaping, never had seen a rolling pin sander, and it never occurred to me that wood could be sculpted in such fashion. I hate to admit it, but at that time I was Forrest Gump-dumb in regard to woodworking - probably everything else too.

Within a year another film made the catalog, featuring Wendle Castle's music rack (can't remember the title). It was a cool how-to film set to Modest Mussorgsky's "Picture at an Exhibition." Then in 1975 I received the first issue of Fine Woodworking (which I still own). I did not know it at the time, but my life was being swept up in a woodworking tsunami that spanned the entire planet. I don't think we will ever see a wave this big again.

It was early 1978 when I noticed an ad in Fine Woodworking for the Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colo. Listed was a three-week summer hands-on workshop with ... Sam Maloof!

LEAD PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SCHWARZ; CHAIR PHOTO BY GENE SASSE

am Maloof is the reason I became a furniture maker. I used to teach shop in the early 1970s. The Portland (Ore.)Public Schools maintained an audio/video depository for teachers and in those days most of the technical choices were film strips with the requisite recording that beeped when it was time to roll forward. Dorky. The heat from the projector was unbearable.

My woodshop "classroom" was small and consisted of a series of tiered benches surrounded by windows reinforced by chicken wire - a needed safety measure to protect students from the occasional explosions in the adjacent welding lab.

Sometime in 1974 I noticed a film titled "Sam Maloof: Woodworker" and ordered it for review. The next day after classes, I rolled in the projector and watched a movie about a woodworker who was unknown to me. It is probably important to mention that I was 23 years old and 1,800 miles from home.

Time erodes my memory, but I believe the film was around 30-40 minutes in length and I watched the film five times in a row. It was the most humbling experience of my life. Here I was teaching woodworking and

42 ■ Popular Woodworking December 2009

BY JOHN ECONOMAKI

Sam Maloof, the son of Lebanese immigrants, was born in Chino, Calif., and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He returned to Southern California after leaving the army in 1945, and married Alfreda Ward in 1948. Maloof began out of necessity building furniture for their house from salvaged materials. After receiving some commissions, he and Freda moved to Alta Lomo, Calif., where he opened a studio and built a home that is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Three years after Freda's death, he married Beverly Wingate and built a second home on the property; the first is now open to the public. Maloof's iconic work is in several major museums, and in the White House.

realizing that I knew nothing about woodworking.

Produced by Maynard Orme (who later served 19 years as the president and CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting), "Sam Maloof: Woodworker" was impossible for me to ignore. I remember a raging internal debate as to whether I should show this to my students for fear of exposing my own