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American Craftsmanship is Not Dead

By Rain Noe - March 21, 2011

in Object Culture

The phrase "U.S. craftsmanship" is not exactly on everyone's lips these days, particularly in the design industry, but it is alive and well. It's being reinvented by guys like Jim Lougheed, a Michigan native whose family background in machinery (both grandfathers were machinists) has propelled him into a career in furniture designing and building with an emphasis on the industrial. "I want the stuff to look like it came out of a factory even if it's unique—so clean it looks like a robot made it," Lougheed says in an interview with a local Michigan paper.

We could not find a website or even contact information for Lougheed's furniture company, Industry Manufacturing Co., though we did locate some YouTube videos of him discussing his first chair and his creative process:

Lougheed, if you're reading this, drop us a line and let us know where we can see more of your stuff.

o

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Blake

13 years ago

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"Trade school projects?" Dude, get off your horse.

This is better than 90% of the crap I saw at ICFF last year. Since when did clean, tight & well-built stop deserving respect?
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Old Dufus

13 years ago

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Craftsmanship? Looks more like trade school projects. Craftsmanship is building complex mechanisms or articles from raw stock- NOT welding recycled junk together!

OD
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ries

13 years ago

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This is not american craftsmanship- its nice, and well done, but its really more american ingenuity in recycling.

The real craftsmen were the patternmakers who made the original wood patterns, the foundrymen who poured these, and the machinists who cut the gear teeth, broached the keyway, and turned the holes.

There are lots or real american craftsmen (and women) out there today, making amazing stuff from scratch.
You should write about them.
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powers

13 years ago

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So let me see if I get that straight. You like the design, but American furniture design is dead because a lot of people are doing similar work? Even though it's good work. Not sure I follow.
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Web design Dan

13 years ago

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I love this table industrial and macho!
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Paul

13 years ago

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It's not American craft that dead, it's American design, specifically furniture design. And this table doesn't help sway opinion: not because it isn't nice, but because you will see a million of these at every trade/craft show in the country. I enjoyed the videos though.
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powers

13 years ago

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More of this, please.
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Nihat

13 years ago

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nice article thanks..
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StiffJab

13 years ago

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Hi there,

I wrote the article (and helped produce the videos), thanks for the shout-out. You can check out more of Jim's work and get in touch with him here:

http://indmfgco.tumblr.com
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Wilson Davalos

13 years ago

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I have this discussion almost on a weekly basis now. I'm so happy that our craftsmanship is still being sought after
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