Meet the maker
Lee Schuette
Woodworker, Maker, Blogger
I want to live in an interesting resilient community where artists, engineers and entrepreneurs feed each other’s spirits. I’ve found community in the NH/VT Upper Valley.
As a designer/maker with more than 40 years of experience, I have taught woodworking, furniture-making and architecture at RIT, UNH, and Dalhousie University. Until I found my favorite material ‘wood”, I worked as a production potter for Tariki Stoneware, blew glass at Pilchick and even tried my hand at knitting. Examples of my sculptural furniture reside in permanent collections of several museums.
I have curated educational programming for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, designed a retail shop for the League of NH Craftsmen in North Conway and even designed footwear for Timberland. My real passion is designing and making public art spaces that inspire gathering and cultural connection. I constructs permanent public spaces made from mixed media that combines wood with metal and other stuff. Building with mixed materials is my specialty. (sweet spot)
I currently manages the state-of-the-art machine shop / maker space that serves Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering.
About the blog
Build + Make
Connecting Builders and Makers to 'new' and 'olde' ways of creating using a mixture of analog and digital tools.
My goal for this blog is to nurture a culture of “making’ that connects builders and makers to ‘new’ and ‘olde’ ways of creating using a mixture of analog and digital tools.
During my eclectic travels as a designer - maker, I have worked in co-op workspaces with other artists in Portsmouth’s Button Factory and the Salmon Falls Mill of Rollinsford (NH). This communal experience gave me a deep appreciation for innovating through collaboration and creative communities. I intend this blog to accelerate that collaboration.
Lee Schuette
Artist Statement
I’m a woodworker/ sculptor / furniture “maker”
or at least I was before our twins were born. Now that they are teenagers, I’m getting my groove on again, teaching and making artful things. No matter what creative project I have in hand, I’ve always had a ‘day job’. The patchwork of my artistic work and “work” work has given me a broad range of design / build experience, ranging from creating fine art to shoemaking, boatbuilding, metal casting, machining and digital fabrication.
But making things from wood is at the core of all my work.
Much of my training was accidental. It started with an incredible man named Jack O’Leary, the father of two of my high school friends, a potter who helped shape my values and introduced me to making, first through throwing pots and later through slab work. After my hands had been in the clay for a few years, I apprenticed for Jack and his son Eric, who both taught me how to see and feel my work. After my apprenticeship, I worked with several European masters who were brought to America through the “School of American Craftsmen”. They fueled my love of craft, refined my attention to detail and helped me establish an effective work process, influencing everything I do.
The ideas within the work have always been my inspiration and developing ideas through materials is the foundation of my ‘making’ practice. My older works of “Art Furniture” take inspiration from contemporary cultural icons and materials more than historic precedent. The work integrates the fine craft of furniture building with my evolving vision of sculpture. Now I mix ‘high-tech’ with ‘high-touch’ practices, using digital tools to hybridize my manipulation of materials between the physical and virtual worlds.
After attending a presentation on my work, a women remarked, “you make funny and not-so-funny” furniture and sculpture. “Funny & not-so-funny” furniture describes works ranging from whimsical one-of-a-kind art furniture and sculpture to traditional furniture objects. The current focus of my work is designing Public Seating and spaces that recognize the importance of gathering as a way to connect people to build stronger community and a sense of place.
I intend for my blog to also serve as a ‘common’ for sharing of ideas around making many things with many materials using ‘new-new’ and ‘olde’ ways of working.