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Society of American Period Furniture Makers
The Mid-Year Conference · October 2–5, 2026

Connecticut River Valley.
Yale to Providence.

Four days at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking in Manchester, with optional tours that bracket the weekend — the Yale Furniture Study on the Friday, the Stanley Weiss Collection and the John Brown House in Providence on the Monday. Presentations on period construction, conservation, hardware, and finishes; the Cartouche Award Banquet the first evening; and the long hours between sessions where most of the actual work happens.

See the full program See last year's program →
This year

October 2–5, 2026.
CT Valley School of Woodworking.

Tim Killen, the 2026 SAPFM Cartouche Award recipient, holding a Windsor chair he built, in his workshop.
Tim Killen · 2026 Cartouche In his shop, with a Windsor chair of his own making.

The 2026 Mid-Year Conference runs October 2–5 at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking in Manchester. It opens Friday evening with the Cartouche Award Banquet at the historic Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, honoring the 2026 recipient, Tim Killen — life-long woodworker, teacher, and author — and continues across Saturday and Sunday with presentations on museum study, period construction, conservation, hardware, japanned finishes, and adhesives.

You'll learn from Steve Latta, Bill Pavlak (master cabinetmaker, Colonial Williamsburg), Steve Brown (twenty-one years at North Bennet Street), Martin O'Brien (four decades conserving early furniture), Joan Parcher (a 40,000-piece hardware collection), Alyce Perry Englund (American Wing curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Bob Behnke of Franklin Adhesives.

A half-day inside the Yale Furniture Study with curator Patricia Kane, and a full day among the Stanley Weiss Collection and the John Brown House in Providence — collections that aren't open on a walk-in basis. Both optional, both first-come.
WhenOctober 2–5, 2026
Optional Yale (Fri) & Providence (Mon) tours
WhereCT Valley School of Woodworking
Manchester, CT
RegistrationOpens July 4
Pricing to follow
HonoreeTim Killen
2026 Cartouche recipient
How it goes

Friday to Monday.

Fri · Oct 2 Optional, daytime: the Yale Furniture Study and Yale University Art Gallery, curator-led, with Patricia Kane and the furniture-study staff. In the evening, the Cartouche Award Banquet at the historic Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum — happy hour, buffet, and a presentation by 2026 honoree Tim Killen. Where the weekend opens.
Sat · Oct 3 A full day of presentations at the school — Steve Brown on getting the most from a museum measuring trip, the rotating small-group sessions with Steve Latta, Bill Pavlak, and Martin O'Brien, and Joan Parcher on period brass hardware.
Sun · Oct 4 Alyce Perry Englund of the Metropolitan Museum on American japanned furniture, Bob Behnke on the science of adhesives, and Steve Latta to close on building a Federal-style card table.
Mon · Oct 5 Optional, full day: a trip to Providence — the Stanley Weiss Collection and the John Brown House, both private. The conference's last word.

Detailed program, presenters, and prices →

The John Brown House, Providence, Rhode Island — a brick Georgian mansion, now a museum of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Providence, the last day. The John Brown House and the Stanley Weiss Collection — the optional Monday trip. Photo: Filetime, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Last year

Williamsburg
October 10–13, 2025.

The 2025 Mid-Year Conference brought 86 registrants to the Williamsburg Lodge for four days of presentations, behind-the-scenes museum access, and the Cartouche Award banquet honoring Bess Naylor — recognized for her work on Pennsylvania furniture and Line and Berry decoration.

Friday's behind-the-scenes program took members into the Anthony Hay Cabinetmakers' Shop and the Booker Tenement with Bill Pavlak and Brian Weldy, the Colonial Williamsburg storage labs with curators Tara Chicirda, Chris Swan, and Sarah Towers, and the Geddy Foundry for a private demonstration of 18th-century hardware casting and engraving.

Saturday rotations ran in three 90-minute sessions across upholstery, tall case clocks, and the Walker tea-table fusion project — Mike Mascelli, Jason Bennett, Ray Journigan — with Bob Van Dyke on Federal-period ladies' work tables. Sunday opened with Bess Naylor's talk and continued into Don Williams on aging finishes, Tad Fallon on traditional water gilding, and Curtis Buchanan on the Democratic Chair.

Friday and Monday optional tours took small groups to a James River plantation with Ralph Harvard and Chipstone furniture editor Luke Beckerdite, and to Historic Shirley and Berkeley Plantation on the Monday — Shirley's three-story flying walnut staircase is the only one of its kind in America.

Earlier years

2024

2024 Mid-Year Conference

Ursinus College · Collegeville, PA

Cartouche: Marion Smith

2023

2023 Mid-Year Conference

Tryon Palace · New Bern, NC

Cartouche: Dan Faia

2022

2022 Mid-Year Conference

Greenville, SC

Cartouche: Chuck Bender

October 2–5, 2026. Manchester, Connecticut.

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