Woodworking
She never planned on becoming one of America’s most renowned cabinetmakers and among just a handful of women in that male-dominated trade. She just needed a decent chair. Later as a writer, she cautioned those interested in producing things with your hands, that craftsmanship involves a significant amount of pain and difficulty – proceed if you love it but also understand its not an easy life.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
NH’s father worked in advertising. Her mother was a homemaker who was also ‘handy’ around the house, able to fix things in their home and build a playhouse in the family’s backyard.
EARLY CHILDHOOD ACTIVITIES CREATED INTEREST IN AN ADULT CAREER
When NH was 9 years old, her parents invited a group of ‘bohemians’ (people who lead ‘unconventional’ lifestyles, with few permanent ties to the same area) to live on their suburban property. For shelter, the visitors built a cottage in a corner of the lot, using recycled wood planks.
Looking back later as an adult, NH said “It was a revelation to see these guys with a saw and sawhorses building a house. It was just so direct. It was amazing to see that you could take tools and simple materials and build a dwelling in which you could live, however crude. That was wonderful for me to see.”
ACADEMIC EDUCATION LEADS TO IDENTIFICATION WITH THE ‘WORKING CLASS’
NH attended an ‘alternative high school’, operated under the philosophy of a social reformer, which emphasized hands-on education, such as classes in sewing and woodworking. By graduation, NH was crafting passable toys and tchotchkes (small, decorative items).
A university accepted NH to study classic literature, but she grew tired of its social pretensions and dropped out after a few semesters. She later earned a certificate from a trade school.
NH had intended to earn a doctorate degree, but after receiving a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree, both in religious studies, she decided that her heart was in her workshop.
‘DO IT YOURSELF’ EXPERIENCE LEADS TO A PAID, ADULT CAREER
After dropping out of college and moving with her boyfriend to a small town in search of work, NH toiled in a metal-casting factory but all she and her boyfriend could afford for living quarters was an unfurnished apartment. To save money, NH decided to fill it herself, building her first tables and chairs from scavenged wood and scraps.
Eventually, NH enrolled in a trade school for carpentry, where she was not just the only woman but also older than the 16- and 17-year-old boys studying to be carpenters. This experience, and NH’s later workshop jobs, instilled in her an ‘ethos’ (beliefs and aspirations) of ‘proletarians’ (refers to the social class whose only possession of economic value is their capacity to work for wages).
With her trade school certificate and increasing experience as a woodworker, NH found employment within wood workshops, producing custom made furniture. Eventually, she opened her one-woman woodworking workshop, steadily building a reputation as one of the best woodworkers in the country, turning out custom, precisely build cabinets, side tables and whole kitchens for clients across the midwestern U.S., as far east as New York.
CAREER SATISFACTION
NH’s woodwork was inspired by the ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which emphasized clean lines, minimal ornament and ‘truth’ in materials and construction. She made things “whose beauty lay in their function and durability.”
There was nothing fancy about NH’s work. She resisted the label ‘artist’ though some people tried to pin it on her. And she deliberately charged less than her peers, not to undercut them but to make her work affordable to middle-class clients who appreciated good design and hard work.
NH was also a very well-regarded writer, producing how-to-guides in magazines like Fine Woodworking and Old House Journal and also books involving history, philosophy and crafting furniture. Her book “The Hoosier Cabinet in Kitchen History” (2009) is considered a landmark history of the American branch of Arts and Crafts.
NH’s book “Making Things Work: Tales From a Cabinetmaker’s Life” (2017) has a double meaning title that got to the heart of her career and what she wanted people to take from it. The book is, of course, about producing useful objects. But it is just as much about the hard work of making things for a living – how to please clients and to use materials efficiently.
NH frequently talked about ‘passion’ in the sense of its original Latin root, “passio” or “suffering,” and how the true experience of craftsmanship involves an immense amount of pain and difficulty. She wanted to strip woodworking of its romance and persuade those attracted by that to find another outlet. “Go ahead and do what you love. But please make sure you open your eyes before diving in.”
This career story is based upon an obituary written by Clay Risen and published on 9/27/22 within the New York Times.
