A. Robert Couch, Juried Craftsman’s Bio/Artist’s Statement
Having lived in New Hampshire all my life, I am naturally inspired and influenced by the early American and Shaker designs. Their simplicity, clean lines and function over form provide me with the basis of my inspiration.
Like many, my woodworking interest was started by my grandfather having me help him in his shop starting at the age of five. Clearly I was limited in what I could do at that age but the love of the smell of wood and the clever things he would invent and create always intrigued me. During school, I always enjoyed my woodshop classes and would build as many projects as I could while I had access to the tools and instruction. I still have the footstool I made in 8th grade shop class.
As an adult with a family, all of my woodworking and furniture making became utilitarian in nature but I knew that someday, I would have the time and resources to well equip a shop and learn the finer skills of fine furniture making.
Generally my techniques are a combination of machines and hand tools. Generally, I use the machinery for material preparation but then use primarily hand tools for joinery and final surface preparation. I always prefer to go to finish right off the tool whenever possible.
Most of my work in recent years has focused on smaller pieces for a couple of reasons. One is that I have a small shop, so trying to manage the workflow of a large piece would prove to be very difficult. However, I now have a shop on Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick Canada, where we spend our Spring through fall seasons. My Grand Manan shop is much larger so I bring my larger commissions there to work on over the summer months, and reserve my smaller pieces and repair work for my Bow NH shop.
My favorite type of work is new commission work, whereby I have the opportunity to work with my client one-on-one throughout the design process. Starting with simple sketches, then detailed full size drawings and on occasion cardboard models to help them attain a better sense of size and scale of the piece we are developing together.
Being involved in several non-profits, some of my work has been designed, crafted and then donated to very worthy causes or given as family heirloom pieces. A few of my work donations over the past five years include the Bow Rotary Club, Baker Free Library, The Friends Program, Hospice of Greater Nashua and the Guild of NH Woodworkers.