Hand-planing white oak, Peoria studio
Prologue
GEOMETRY
LIVES
IN THE
GRAIN
White oak. Black walnut. Prairie horizon lines. The joint is the ornament.
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Chapter I — The Land
Born on a
flat horizon.
I grew up in a farmhouse outside Galesburg, Illinois where the prairie ran unbroken to the edge of sky. Everything was horizontal. The land didn't rise — it stretched. That's the first geometry I learned.
At eleven, I found a stack of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian drawings in my grandfather's workshop — a man who built barns with mortise-and-tenon joints so tight they didn't need glue. I spent three weeks trying to copy one joint from a photograph. I failed seventeen times.
"The eighteenth time, the joint pulled tight with a sound like a sentence finishing itself. I knew then what I was going to spend my life doing."
That failed joint lives in a glass box in the studio today. Every commission starts with the apprentice looking at it.
Galesburg, Illinois — 1994
First sketch — graph paper, 1997Mortise & Tenon №001
Chapter II — The Wood
Two woods.
One argument.
White oak argues with walnut the way a prairie horizon argues with a storm front. The tension between them is the design.
White Oak
Quercus alba
Sourced from small family mills in Wisconsin and southern Illinois. White oak carries the medullary rays that Frank Lloyd Wright called "the natural ornament of the wood." We use it for table tops, credenza faces, and anywhere the grain itself is the statement.
Signature joints
Through TenonBreadboard EndButterfly Key
Black Walnut
Juglans nigra
Air-dried for a minimum of three years in our Peoria yard. Walnut's near-black heartwood creates the geometric contrast that makes inlay patterns visible from across a room. We use it for legs, inlay strips, and structural elements where darkness is structural.
Signature joints
Sliding DovetailSpline MiterWedged Tusk Tenon
Prairie dining table — inlay geometry
White oak field · Walnut inlay strips · Violet: geometric accent joints
Chapter III — The Workshop
Through-tenon detail — black walnut
The bench, 6 AM — before the day begins
Where the
geometry is cut.
The studio occupies a former farm implement building outside Peoria. The ceiling is eighteen feet. The dust collector runs seven hours a day. There are three people: myself, my apprentice Marcus, and a retired pattern-maker named Dorothea who hand-cuts every inlay.
We don't use CNC. Every joint is hand-cut to within a quarter millimeter. That's not craft nostalgia — it's because machine-cut joints have no character, no slight compression fit that makes a table feel solid for a hundred years.
The Joinery Field Guide
Twelve joints illustrated by hand. Mortise and tenon, wedged tusk tenon, butterfly key, sliding dovetail, spline miter — each drawn at 1:1 scale with notes on why we choose it and where it lives in the collection.
Chapter IV — The Pieces
The collection.
Each piece an argument.
Every piece is made to commission. Lead time is 14–22 weeks. No two pieces are identical — the wood decides.
Browse the Lookbook →
White oak · walnut inlay
Prairie Credenza No. 7
84" × 18" × 32"
Twelve-panel geometric inlay. Sliding dovetail drawer banks. Butterfly keys at panel joints.
White oak · walnut legs
Horizon Dining Table
96" × 42" × 29"
Breadboard ends with through-tenons. Visible wedge. Prairie horizon inlay at centerline.
Black walnut
Usonian Side Table
24" × 24" × 22"
Wedged tusk tenon stretcher. Splined miter top. Single-piece walnut top.
White oak · brass hardware
Geometric Wall Cabinet
48" × 12" × 36"
Diamond-pattern door inlay in walnut. Mortise-and-tenon frame. Hand-cut brass escutcheons.
White oak
Low Prairie Bench
72" × 16" × 16"
Trestle base with through-wedged tenon. Breadboard ends. Horizontal emphasis — the prairie line.
"I've furnished three houses. The Horizon Dining Table is the first piece that made my architect friends run their fingers along the edge and ask who made it."
Margaret Okonkwo
Interior designer, Chicago
"The through-tenon detail is visible from across the room and still precise enough to study with a loupe. That's an unusual combination in contemporary furniture."
David Reinholt
Architect, Reinholt + Marsh, Minneapolis
Epilogue
Twelve joints.
Drawn by hand.
The Joinery Field Guide is a free illustrated PDF — twelve signature joints from the collection, each drawn at 1:1 scale with construction notes and the story of why we use them.
It's the document I wish had existed when I was standing in my grandfather's workshop trying to cut that first mortise. First name and email. That's it.
Joinery Field Guide
Free · Illustrated · 24 pages