2026 SAPFM Mid-Year Conference

Steve Brown: “Making the Most of a Museum Furniture Measuring Trip”

Steve opens Saturday with an hour on getting the most from a museum measuring trip — how to gather everything you need to reproduce a period piece. He covers hands-on techniques for accurately tracing cabriole legs, period moldings, pediments, and carvings, along with the checklists that keep you from driving home only to find you never recorded the piece's height. Just as important is museum etiquette: you are imposing on a busy curator's time, and conducting yourself well is what gets you invited back.

A 1990 graduate of the Cabinet and Furniture Making program at North Bennet Street School, Steve went to work with Phil Lowe in Beverly, Massachusetts, and began teaching at NBSS in 1992, returning to the full-time program in 1999. He taught there for 21 years, several as department head. His work is held in galleries, museums, and private collections, and he has lectured and demonstrated for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Winterthur, Historic New England, Old Sturbridge Village, and Colonial Williamsburg, among others. He served as technical advisor to the WGBH series Rough Cut for six of its seven seasons.

Steve Latta: “Table Construction: A Surgical Approach”

Whether running or woodworking, the goal is to find a rhythm where the effort just flows. A table can be made a number of ways, but what brings harmony to the work is a concise method that factors in efficiency and accuracy. This demonstration focuses on a classic single-drawer end table, with an emphasis on a systematic approach to building that eliminates errors and cleans up the work. Understanding which cut, when, and why is the key to precise dimensioning and a surgical execution of the joinery — traditional and double-tusk tenoning, along with lap, blind, and through dovetailing.

Steve Latta retired in 2024 after teaching furniture making for 26 years. He makes both contemporary and traditional pieces and has lately divided his time to include tool making and writing. A contributing editor to Fine Woodworking, he has released several videos on inlay and furniture construction and has lectured at Colonial Williamsburg, MESDA, Yale, the American Decorative Arts Forum, and Winterthur. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, in rural southeastern Pennsylvania.

Bill Pavlak: “More Than a Drawer: Adjustable Writing Tables”

They look like simple four-legged tables with a drawer, but many period writing tables are more than meets the eye. Open the drawer and it has its own writing surface, often adjustable by a ratcheting mechanism; to carry the extra weight, the drawer may have legs of its own. How did 18th-century craftspeople build drawers with legs, where dovetails and mortise-and-tenon joints meet at the same corner? How did they coordinate moving parts into an adjustable writing surface? This session looks at period strategies for simplifying these complex structures and demonstrates the hand-tool techniques needed to execute them.

Bill Pavlak is senior manager of Historic Trades and Skills and master cabinetmaker at Colonial Williamsburg, where he has worked since 2005. His work is held in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg, Monticello, and private homes, and he writes frequently for publications including Mortise & Tenon and Fine Woodworking. A native of Port Washington, New York, he holds a BA in music theory and double-bass performance from Connecticut College and a master's in music theory from the University of North Texas.

Martin O'Brien: “Learn from Others' Mistakes: Tips from the Furniture Repair Shop”

Fixing and maintaining furniture may be the best way to improve both the design and the construction of the furniture you make. Martin takes up a few questions: Why has period furniture survived? What makes something last? Do you consider repair and maintenance in what you build today? For 40 years he has made his living conserving 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century furniture, and he believes those early craftspeople have spoken to him through their work — teaching him what does and doesn't last. He'll share some of that experience.

Martin O'Brien has worked professionally since 1987, first in cabinet shops and then on his own, conserving early furniture — including extensive work on the collection at MESDA. He has some formal training in conservation and science but credits most of what he knows to the work itself and to the generosity of fellow craftspeople and clients. He doesn't use the title 'master'; he describes himself as a craftsperson who, after all these years, is finally becoming a good student and a teacher.

Joan Parcher: “Period Furniture Hardware: Construction, Finishes, and Reproduction”

To break up the afternoon, Joan Parcher offers a look into her world of identifying, restoring, repairing, and even casting brass hardware for period furniture. She has assembled a collection of more than 40,000 examples dating from about 1680 to 1860 — from a handmade securing nut to a gilt mount — and will bring a large display of favorites, much of it available for members to examine up close. She discusses construction methods, tool marks, and the finishes found on period hardware, compares antique brasses with modern reproductions, and walks through the process of having custom hardware made by a brass-casting specialist.

Joan received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1986. A jeweler best known for her work in vitreous enamel and natural materials, she has pieces in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal. She lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.

Alyce Perry Englund: “Beasts and Angels: American Japanned Furniture”

Alyce Perry Englund, Curator in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, investigates Massachusetts furniture from 1700 to 1765 with japanned finishes — an ornamental phenomenon inspired by the lustrous surfaces and narrative imagery of Asian lacquer. American japanning reflects the reach of global trade networks, a fusion of artistic traditions, and the inventive technical methods of local craftsmen. Englund shares recent discoveries in The Met's collections and new attributions to the japanner Thomas Johnston.

Alyce Perry Englund oversees the Met's 17th- to early-19th-century furniture and Shaker collections. Before joining the museum in 2015 she worked at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Historic New England. She holds a BA in art history from the University of Vermont and an MA from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and is an alumna of the Attingham Summer School. Her recent exhibitions at the Met include Simple Gifts: Shaker at the Met (2016), Chippendale's Director (2018), and The Calculated Curve: Eighteenth-Century American Furniture (2024).

Bob Behnke: “Adhesives: Properties, Performance, and Failures”

Bob Behnke, Technical Service Manager for Franklin Adhesives — the maker of Titebond — gets into the finer points of glue: the properties of different adhesives, how they work, what causes them to fail, and whatever questions the room brings. Plan on an hour and a half that goes by fast.

Steve Latta: “Building a Federal-Style Card Table”

Steve Latta closes the conference with a look at the intricacies — and the pitfalls — of building a Federal-style card table. (See Saturday for Steve's bio.)