Amid all the dark news in the age of COVID, it was great to hear that my recently completed walnut baptism stand was used in its first baptism at the Main Street Congregational Church in Amesbury, Mass. I’m hoping 2021 brings more joyful occasions and fewer sad ones. I designed the stand to harmonize with a communion table that the church had commissioned a few years ago. Roger Cramer, an...

Judging a music stand for aesthetics is important. I make music stands one at a time. While I’ve worked out the general dimensions and the like over the years, each music stand develops its own personality as it is made. Certainly, that personality is influenced by choices in wood. But more important still are the choices made as wood is shaped out of rough timber. If the choices go well, the...