When I watched the movie The Wrecking Crew’, ex-Monkees Micky Dolenz, who was part of the large cast, made a few apparitions in the film, and he looked very happy. Well have you seen him not smiling? The 60s may be an old memory, but at 70, the Monkees drummer has enough money to rest till the end of his life, however, he has embarked in a new career, in an unexpected return to craftsmanship!
If I ran into Neil Young during his daughter’s art exhibit at Shepard Fairey’s studio, this other father-and-daughter affair is a bit different. Contrarily to Young, Dolenz is not in the music business anymore and he is totally involved with the craft of his daughter Georgia: They are making beautiful wooden furniture together. It all started as a hobby, but since 2013 the two of them have a real business, making handmade furniture in his home woodshop west of Los Angeles.
‘When I moved to L.A. permanently four years ago, my dad and I started making things four ourselves in his workshop,’ explained Georgia to Dwell on Design. ‘I’d say, ‘I need a bookcase,’ so we’d build a bookcase. And then we made a coffee table as a birthday present for a friend. We designed it ourselves and it was a really cool coffee table, so I said, ‘Why don’t we do this as a business?’ We both love spending days in the workshop, and it just seemed that we could sell these, and maybe someone would buy one.’
Micky didn’t take it seriously first but the idea took off.‘I said, we’ll call it ‘Dolenz and Daughters Fine Furniture,’’ said Micky. ’I almost said it as a joke.’
Georgia registered the website right away, and they began taking orders! Micky, whose father was a struggling actor and singer supplementing his income with carpentry, wanted to be an architect, but, as we know, became a Monkee instead. That’s why he knows ‘about joints and structure and the physics of it, and stress and stuff like that’. Thus, he is doing the heavy lifting part of the job while Georgia is responsible for the design and the finishing. Their pieces of furniture look very simple and functional, with a faux-age look.
Father and daughter will even make an apparition at LA Convention center during Dwell on Design LA, Saturday May 30th.