86 – Interview with Darrell Peart

Video - April 13, 2009

Darrell Peart is a furniture-maker, author, and instructor living in the Pacific Northwest. His work is heavily influenced by the work of the Greene brothers and as you can see on his website, Darrell likes to put his own spin on it. This interview took place in March of 2009 at the William Ng School. I took Darrell’s Aurora End Table class and he was kind enough to sit and chat with me about all kinds of things: influences, design theories, copying other works, and Greene & Greene. Darrell also gives a few tips to help bring out that inner designer inside of all of us (if it isn’t coming out naturally).

If you are interested in learning more about Greene & Greene history and techniques, you have to check out Darrell’s book. You can pick it up directly on his website and he’ll even autograph it for you!

Discussion

jlsmith April 14, 2009 11:48 am

Art museums do allow the copying of artwork for educational purposes, however, the museums have several technics they employ to make sure these copies are not mistaken for the original, one of which is they do not allow full size copies. When trying to sort through the thorny issues regarding reproductions it is rather (unintentionally) misleading to cite art museums allowing copies to be made as a precedent for acceptable copying of someone’s furniture design.

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- BarryO April 14, 2009 7:57 pm
  
  Oh boy, here we go again.
  
  Actually, the question of copying paintings, in art museums or elsewhere, has nothing to do with copying of furniture designs.
  
  Marc brings up ‘copyright’ again in connection to furniture design. I guess he doesn’t remember my response the last time he did that. ;)
  
  The bottom line is, you *can’t* copyright a furniture design. A designer may if they wish obtain a Design Patent for a design. Thomas Moser is one company that regularly does this. But if they choose not to do so, they place the design in the public domain and others are free to copy it, even their commercial competitors. In the example Darrell gave, he could in all likelihood have copied his friend’s furniture. There may be good reasons not to do so from a marketing positioning point of view (it’s hard to market yourself as a high-end custom furniture designer/maker when you’ve given your competitors ammunition to label you a knock-off artist), but it would have been perfectly legal.
  
  There are also the very rare “trade dress” trademark restrictions on some designs. And of course logos and signatures are protected by trademark. Any sort of picture or pattern that could exist independent of the furniture could by itself be coprighted. But copyright on the design itself? Nope.
  
  The recent PWW article covered the subject of reproductions very well. But to be honest, the misleading off-the-cuff remarks that have been made in many places in the online woodworking community on this subject bother me, as they misinform readers. A guy thinks he can just put a “copyright (c) 2009” statement on the pictures on his website, and that will protect his designs. How often do you see that? He “knows” that must be true, because he’s read it in a half-dozen places on the internet, from famous expert woodworkers. Maybe he even shows it to a high-volume manufacturer, to see if they have any interest. Then he’s totally outraged when 6 months later, that same manufacturer is selling copies in Target, and never compensated him. Legally, they don’t have to.
  
  Reply
  - thewoodwhisperer April 14, 2009 9:21 pm
    
    It was really just a trick to get you to comment again Barry. :)
    Although the word copyright came out of my mouth, the question was really meant to be more of an ethical one. As someone who makes a living taking heavy influence from a particular furniture design duo, I wanted to hear Darrel’s thoughts on where we should draw the line.
    
    Reply
    - Darrell Urbien March 27, 2014 8:31 am
      
      I wonder if you ever check these old posts for replies.. Let’s give it a shot!
      
      I loved this interview and really admire Darrell Peart’s work and the G&G design aesthetic. It was fun to follow your G&G projects both on the blog and podcast. Nice work!
      
      I’m new to this blog and haven’t followed all the arguments mentioned in the comments above – hopefully this hasn’t been beaten to death already.
      
      Darrell Peart mentions he has no issues about reproducing a G&G design because no one is currently “making a living off of it”. However many of the “designer” furniture makers of the last century (e.g. Frank Lloyd Wright, Gerrit Rietveld, the Eameses) have licensed reproductions being made by big furniture manufacturers. Sometimes these are tied to legacy foundations, but other times it’s simply for profit.
      
      If for example I decided to reproduce the Eames LCW chair for sale, I’m pretty sure Herman Miller would send me a letter telling me to stop. The design may not be “copyrighted” but how about reproducing “licensed” designs? There’s got to be something more to it than just an ethical dilemma.
      
      I know if you don’t defend your copyright/trademarks then they are not enforceable (e.g. all the fake Gibson F5 mandolins out there). Are G&G reproductions “safe” now because no one had bothered to defend the trademarks for so long after their deaths?
      
      another Darrell
    - Marc Spagnuolo March 27, 2014 11:35 am
      
      Well of course I see all comments that come in through the site. :) I don’t have answers for you on the topic but just wanted to let you know I saw it. No guarantee others will see it though. :)
David April 14, 2009 12:59 pm

Marc –

Congratulations on a well done interview. I enjoyed Darrell’s book and admire his work so this was a real treat!

David

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Vic April 16, 2009 9:28 pm

I didn’t in anyway sense that Peart’s comments were to infer any legal boundaries pertaining to copying, rather what I thought to be a well stated view of how he sees the ethical boundaries of the practice of copying.

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tom hunt April 17, 2009 7:33 am

Thanks to BOTH of you for this chat. Everyone brings their own background and approach to woodworking, and this interview helps us see some of both from the two of you. I’ve written you eariler about my experience with Darrell’s generous help and advice on a cabinet design I’m working on. I wish I could somehow explain to your audience that the two interesting, knowledgeable, expierenced guys on the screen are, with just a little modern technology, really accessible to all of us. Keep up the good work.

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Travis Z April 17, 2009 10:58 am

Marc,

Are we going to see a dramatic shift in your philosophy when it comes to building projects? I’ve alwayds appreciated teh practicality of relative dimensioning, but maybe it’s becasue I’m just not that accurate! ;)

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- thewoodwhisperer April 17, 2009 11:12 am
  
  Well, you may not see a dramatic shift so much as an attempt at experimentation. I will probably dabble in it a bit just to see how I like it and if there is anything I want to bring into my normal everyday work-flow. We all need to find a system that works best for us. And if we are evolving as woodworkers, its to be expected that our work methods should evolve as well.
  Forcing myself to use Darrell’s methodology that week opened my mind and I definitely saw the benefit within the context of that particular project. But how will it fare in my shop on my own projects? That remains to be seen.
  
  Reply
Rick L. April 23, 2009 2:43 pm

Facinating interview. You can sense the passion that Mr. Peart has for his craft and career. Thank you, Marc, for sharing some of your journey in pursuit of excellence. There is no standing still; we all have to grow and change over time. It is great to learn from others, like Mr. Peart, who have attained exceptional levels of proficiency. Your video series are fantastic. Keep up the good work – and thanks, once again for your willingness to share…

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Stephen Leadbeater August 19, 2009 11:50 pm

I would love a book on design from Darrell. I saved up and bought his book and would find the money just as fast as I could to buy any book on design and building by him. His approach and take really resonate with me.
I totally agree, 3D cad rocks. I have an old version of Solid works and it is great. Sketchup is really nice for simple things but when you want to get really accurate and have global design change update available cad is the answer.

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Omar Johnson November 30, 2009 2:34 pm

This was a great interview. Thanks for hosting this great site.

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Dan Morey September 16, 2017 1:45 pm

Almost blew past this one, glad I did not. Some interesting ideas on design and how to move into designing my own stuff.

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86 – Interview with Darrell Peart

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