Intrepid Makers: Garry Knox Bennett

Like Judy McKie and Wendell Castle, Garry Knox Bennett arrived in woodworking after attending art school and never received formal training in the craft. Also like them, he had a brain teeming with unusual ideas and an enormous drive to get things made.

Drawing was second nature to Bennett, but he didn’t waste time with it before making a piece of furniture. “I don’t do any drawing except right on the wood, at the bandsaw,” he said. He could see his pieces before he made them. “I work out most of my designs at night instead of counting sheep. Then I come into the shop the next day and start sawing.”

He made nearly all his work on speculation and in series. He would choose a furniture form—the chair, the clock, the bench, the dining table—and make a dozen, two dozen, three dozen of them in a stretch, each one different. The pieces in a series might have a shared…