Beginner Woodworking: Steelers Flight Board with John Henley

John Henley is teaching a beginner woodworking class at Contemporary Craft on Saturday, October 24, from 11 AM to 3 PM. The project is a Steelers flight board—a custom wooden board for holding a flight of drinks—and it's part of the studio's Wood Workshops collection. It's a four-hour session, and it's aimed at beginners, so you don't need any prior experience to sign up.

Over the course of the afternoon, you'll take a rough-sawn board and mill it down into surfaced lumber, add dowel feet to keep it off the table, and drill the holes for your glasses. The final touch is the inlay: you get to pick a Pittsburgh-themed engraved coaster to set into the wood. The options run from local sports teams to Jalapeño Hannah or an Eat'n'Park cookie, so you can tailor it to whatever part of the city you're most into.

Henley is a woodworker, designer, and researcher who makes functional objects that build a connection with the materials, landscapes, and people around him. He holds a B.Des in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon and trained as an apprentice to master woodworker Tadao Arimoto. Raised in Oregon and now based in Pittsburgh, his work combines traditional craft practices with contemporary praxis, informed by his interest in landscape—both natural and built. He's received several awards and residencies, including a fellowship with the Steve Jobs Archive, and is currently an apprentice at Contemporary Craft, where he supports arts education while maintaining his own studio practice.

The workshop runs from 11 AM to 3 PM at Contemporary Craft Timmons Studios, 5688 Butler St. in Pittsburgh. It costs $90 plus a $25 materials fee, and all the materials are provided, so you just need to show up.