Tage Stool by Fabrizio Lo Faro
Because cabinetmakers aren’t machines, and because they tend to obsess about every detail, handmade furniture is way more expensive than anything mass produced, and so it should be.
Most of the cost of producing a fine piece of furniture is the labour. The flip side of this is that the materials are a correspondingly small proportion of the cost. It is always a temptation on the part of the maker to indulge the client with exotic materials, gold, burrs, ebony stringing, to justify the lumpy price on a piece of furniture. Certainly there are also plenty of clients that expect a bit of bling for the money.
So it is always great to see a Rowden student try a challenging piece that forgoes any sense of bling, or flash, and instead shows great mastery of some tricky furniture making skills through what, at first glance, looks like quite a simple piece.
Enter Fabrizio Lo Faro who decided to tackle the Tage Frid three leg stool. It is a work of art. So simple in style, but with such endless complexity in the making that only a good craftsman can make it well. Angled legs, shouldered, with a wedged through dowel. The legs have an oval cross section as well as tapering, ditto the cross members. The seat is full of organic hand shaped curves and has a dovetailed back that reclines past a right angle.
And there it is. A stool. Awesome work, Fabrizio.
You can follow Fabrizio’s progress on Instagram @flofaro85
Until next time,
Lakshmi
