About Don

The Barn in IllinoisDon Williams is a conservator, educator, scholar, and all around inquisitive guy, having worked on some of the most interesting objects and historic buildings in our nation’s public and private collections. He has developed, managed, and presented educational programming on an array of subjects in the fields of conservation, woodworking, and wood finishing, and has published and presented scholarly research on subjects like ancient coating materials and craft techniques, and created pioneering uses for traditional and modern materials, including some of his own invention.

In his spare time he passionately pursues varied interests, including economics, metal casting, collecting obscure books and tools, Japanese gardening, and faith, all of which usually occur against a backdrop of either jazz or podcast lectures on various arcane topics. He and his wife have two brilliant and charming daughters who lovingly accept that their eccentric Dad has dozens of different kinds of shellac in the basement, which will soon have a place of honor in his restored vintage timber framed barn alongside their cabin retreat in the mountains of rural Virginia.