FINE ARTS
Lasting Impressions
Six months out of the year, this orthodontist
sinks his teeth into an unusual endeavor.
Steve Lash checks some plans.
ADRIEN CHANDLER
Special to The Jewish News
D
r. Steven Lash's house
is a woodworker's
dream, or rather, a
wooden dream that needs
work. The large, rambling, all
wood, 76-year-old former
country house in Bloomfield
Township is an on-going, fix-
up project for Lash. He
doesn't mind, though. That's
his summer-weather wood-
working. From November to
April, you can find Lash, 46,
in his basement shop, work-
ing on what the West Bloom-
field orthodontist jokingly
calls his "real job" — building
replicas of 18th-century
American furniture.
But not just any replicas.
Lash, who says his passion for
70
FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1990
wood and woodworking began
in childhood, constructs
reproductions of museum
quality pieces — masterpieces
he discovers, researches,
visits, measures, and studies
with a compulsion for craft-
smanship, and exacting and
exquisite detail taken to the
"nth" degree. Then, he builds
the furniture from the ground
up, using some modern
techniques and equipment,
even computer-aided design.
But much of the fine carving,
curves, corners and inlays are
done as they were more than
200 years ago — by hand. In
total, Lash has built eight
pieces of furniture and seven
clocks over a 23-year period,
not exactly mass production,
but that's not Lash's intent.
Lash's hobby may have had
its origin in childhood, when
he cut out wooden soldiers
with his own jigsaw. The driv-
ing interest in furniture
building really took root more
than 20 years ago. He and his
wife, Carol, had just gotten
married. Steve was in dental
school at the University of
Detroit. "We wanted a grand-
father clock, but we couldn't
afford one. So, I visited an ar-
dent woodworker friend of
mine, Dr. Abe Cohen. He'd
said, 'Come over and see what
I'm doing.'
"I said, 'I'm interested in
clocks. I want to make a
grandfather clock.' And he
said, 'Start with something
small.' So, I started with the
biggest one in the catalogue."
With no formal training ex-
cept public school shop class,
Lash did build the case for
the clock and was hooked on
making furniture.
Shortly after graduating
from dental school, Lash
entered the Air Force. As luck
would have it, his base in
New Jersey had a huge, infre-
quently used wood shop. Lash
became its most regular
customer. It was there, Lash
says, that he taught himself
how to use a lathe and how to
attach veneers. He continued
to build clock cases during his
two-year tour of duty.
In 1970, the Lashes return-
ed to Detroit, so Steve could
attend orthodontics school at
the University of Michigan.
At this time, Lash decided he
wanted to build something
other than a clock. He decid-
ed on a low boy; his model was
a period piece at the Detroit
Institute of Arts. The chest
was in a public area, so Lash
didn't figure he needed per-
mission to examine it.
"I did some rudimentary
research. I went to the DIA to
take some pictures and
measure the piece, and boom,
I was grabbed by security and
got promptly thrown right
out."
Lash eventually got permis-
sion to do the detailed
measurements, and he built
the low boy, which sits in the
foyer of his home.
Lash strives for accuracy,
detail and quality when it
comes to building furniture.
He has sought out and
secured suppliers from across
the country — brass handles
and fittings from a Penn-
sylvania company, manufac-
tured to his specifications
from rubbings he takes from
the museum pieces, a high-
quality hardwood supplier in
Highland, Mich., and veneers
from an importer in Buffalo.
Lash even mixes his own
stains, shellacs and glues.
A stickler for specifics, Lash
says when he was building
his circa-1760-Townsend-and-
Goddard desk, he visited the
original at the Yale Art
Museum. The curator permit-
ted him to take the intricate
desk apart, pull out all of the
16
-
Turning a leg.
drawers and examine and
measure everything to make
sure no detail was missed.
One detail Lash says he
didn't know about the desk
was the construction of the
carved shell decorations on
the slant front. When he
began to build the piece, he
didn't realize that the carv-
ings were done separately
and then glued on. Lash carv-
ed the full front from a single
piece of wood. It alone took six
months.
That desk, which Lash says
contains some of his own
design elements, is one of his
pride and joys. Constructed
from mahogany, poplar and
rare chestnut, the slant front
desk, "a truly American
design," says Lash, took 18
months to build. It contains
29 drawers and 10 hidden
cubbyholes.
Also tucked away inside
many of Lash's pieces are wit-
ty and sometimes biting little
sayings in Latin or English,
scripted right into the wood.
Phrases such as: "Skill to do
comes from doing;" "Many
admire; few know;" or
"Genius is nothing more than
the ability to persevere."
"It adds to the spirit of the
piece," says Lash.
Two works of which he is
especially proud are a pair of
18th-century spinets — a pro-
ject that took him four years
and numerous trips to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City to complete.
The source of inspiration for
the harpsichord was a bit
unusual. Lash says he was
finishing up the desk in his
basement shop with the TV
on. "If I'm home during the
day, I'll watch soap operas, old
cowboy movies, talk shows,
anything. One morning, 'Mr.
Roger's Neighborhood' was
on. And I'm listening . . . He
had a lady on who was play-
ing a harpsichord. It's a uni-
que sound. I had never heard
a harpsichord before."
The sound and the instru-
ment's beauty caught his eye.
"Here's a musical instrument
that was magnificent . . .
made of wood."
Lash noticed the name on
the harpsichord, recognized it
from his readings, contacted
the Boston, Mass., manufac-
turer, and visited its shop the
next year. Afterward, Lash
figured if a spinet could be
made in the 18th century,
why couldn't he make one
now? But first, he needed a
model and spotted one in an
antiques book. The spinet
was on display at the Met, but
to Lash's dismay, the museum
flatly turned down his re-
quest to come and measure
the piece.
Undaunted, Lash bought
every book he could find that
pictured the harpsichord,
visited other manufacturers
and kept after the museum,
which finally gave him copies
of the curator's worksheet
containing the harpsichord's
specifications.
Lash began to build the in-
strument from the existing
information, but kept pursu-
ing the museum in hopes of
obtaining his own details.