Arts & Mysteries

Master Cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) recommended that cabinetmakers learn drafting so that they could “shew…the Conduct and Effect of the Piece.” I haven’t [...]

Side Chair, Philadelphia, c.1750 Philadelphia Museum of Art The axiom “form follows function” guides our designs and our esthetics. I can’t think that there is a woodworker who [...]

Arts and Mysteries began when Popular Woodworking’s editor Chris Schwarz, asked me if I was interested in writing an article for an existing column on hand tool usage called “From the [...]

This posed photo (the opening photo for the first Arts & Mysteries column for 2007) is my best approximation of Johannes Vermeer’s “The Geographer” (1668/69). Vermeer is one [...]

From the Editor: Arts & Mysteries is one of our most-read columns in Popular Woodworking magazine. Whether you sympathize with Adam Cherubini’s approach to working wood entirely with [...]