Working artists need to earn a living while creating their art. These two requirements can seem at odds with each other. Few artists experience “build it and they will come.” The business side of art often feels limiting. The working artist must figure out how to work in partnership with customers, the marketplace, other artists, and in many cases, the employer. The employer as mentor ideally sets structure to make the business successful, and within that structure gives artistic free rein. John Stass has become a master at both.
John, the owner of Katahdin Studio Furniture, has been a professional artist for 15 years. He started in a small workshop at his home, and 14 years ago moved his workshop to the historic Hill Mill in Lewiston, Maine. This complex has housed various businesses for more than a century. In 2008, he doubled the size of his production area, and added a gallery showroom. It’s an impressive, huge space, the history is palpable. Over the past six years, he has hired fine craftspeople to work with him. Together, they design and build, continually expanding their repertoire. John’s work is commissioned world-wide... often by a celebrity clientele. Melissa Etheridge, the late Andy Griffiths, John Sebastian, and the Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien shows are among them. He creates specialty furniture for customers in all 50 states, Canada, Europe and Asia.
He shifted from a long profession in the corporate world when he made his first guitar stand. His art career was born and has steadily grown. That growth has generated the need to employ artists and artisans to help create and keep up with demand for his superb high-end furniture. He hires people with a mind to their becoming collaborators in the business, as well as designers and builders.
He always looks for different skills and experience levels, to augment his own and those of the other staff. He looks for the contributions they will make, encourages them with his own mentoring and sets the stage for them to mentor each other. Some have earned furniture design and production degrees, with high artistic sense and knowledge of the art world. Others have been home-builders and contractors, general artisans, former owners of their own businesses, furniture makers with decades of experience. John says “I hire people who are better than I am, and that’s pretty easy to do. If they are not already better, I expect them to become so. That way I don’t have to defend my own ignorance. I’m a self-taught woodworker, and that’s not something I’m proud of. I would have progressed so much faster with mentors. My staff members cannot make a mistake that I haven’t already made myself.”
John’s challenge is to mentor his staff to become better working artists. Katahdin Studio’s customers have clear expectations of design and quality. Many of them have commissioned furniture from John over years. How does he help the artists learn the “Katahdin look” and at the same time develop their highest inventiveness?
John sets clear prerequisites about what that “Katahdin look” is. He establishes parameters, and then trusts the artist. He says “Constraints can engender greater creativity and make it flourish. I help artists deal with the real world, cost limitations, and use constrictions to explore virgin territory.” His customers want natural-looking pieces, accentuated woods, grain that can be felt, always an earthy look and almost austere designs. Katahdin’s work is not like any other, everything is original. John sets these criteria, and then lets his artists go. He talks about Stephen and Caleb, Maine College of Art graduates. “They often design in tandem, and keep their designs within the workshop’s capacities. They use each others’ strengths and augment each others’ weaknesses.” He invites their ideas and suggestions, and learns from them himself. He says they “doubled my palette of possibilities and vocabulary of woodworking. They combined different materials- metal and wood. They have collaborated with other craftspeople, thus expanding the range of possibilities. They have showed me what a box I was in. They make things that are beyond my imagination. Their pieces look like nothing else in the Katahdin collection, yet they all fit the criteria.” They pass steps in the work to each other, considering who is most skilled in that step, in order to be expedient. Because they went to school with each other, they knew each other very well and easily blended their approaches.
The two newest staff members, Fred and Michelle, have worked together, at the time of this writing, for two weeks. They do not know each other, the “Katahdin look,” or the design parameters. John’s mentoring focus is shifting to teambuilding and altering his approach according to their styles. He is re-instituting a design center to help them learn about each other and coordinate their designs. This area will house clippings and sketches that will keep changing. He also keeps a drawing table and supplies there. “Drawing by hand is not looked down on, although we will be mentoring each other on computer drawing.” Positive reinforcement is very important for these newer members. Fred has long general craftsman experience, Michelle is a former contractor. A new mentoring cycle is beginning, and John is excited. Like all of the artists I’m writing about, he loves best to learn from the people around him, a primary mentor characteristic.
John teaches the Katahdin artists to mentor through his own example, and not only to mentor each other. I had the great enjoyment of taking a furniture class with John, Stephen and Caleb. We were learning to hand craft a small bench, with chisels, mallets and hand saws our only tools. I’d never come close to building a piece of furniture before. My wood sculptures have nothing to do with measuring. However John anticipated, optimistically, that the bench would be a piece of cake for me. Not so much. A couple of hours into the work, he commented with surprise “Susan, this really is a stretch for you, isn’t it!” Yes, it was, and a stretch for each of the eight people in the class. Some had built furniture using machinery; some had never made anything of any sort out of wood. And then there was me, fitting pieces together with accuracy a total mystery. We were all baffled in our own ways. Our teachers gave each substantial individual attention, with the additional pressure of getting us to the same end point after two days: completed benches. The least experienced in the group was off and running immediately; she had nothing to unlearn. The most experienced pined for their band saws. I just didn’t get how these perplexing cuts were going to result in something that would actually stand evenly and firmly on the ground. As in my story about Chris Pye, John, Stephen and Caleb spent some time presenting basics to the whole group. Individual mentoring works best when there is a baseline of information and understanding. Then they made their rounds. I learned how to use a carpenter’s chisel vs. a carver’s chisel, how to let a handsaw do its work without undue pressure, and how to compensate for inaccurate measurement. I measured inaccurately a lot. And amazingly to me, I finished my bench by the end of the class. Stephen and Caleb knew exactly when to stand back and coach, and when to give a hand. My favorite line from them was “Everyone is doing so well; I’m a little bored right now. Would you let me make this cut for you so I have something to do?” All of us pretty much finished at the same time, proud of our benches. I’m hugely proud of mine. It stands on the floor squarely, I can sit on it, and it has a prominent place in my living room.
Stephen and Caleb were so encouraging to give me some thoughts about how I can integrate mortise and tenon techniques with my free-form sculpture. Great ideas that inspire me to expand my own creativity. That’s what artists mentoring artists is all about.
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