37 years later

I'm a student again

37 years ago I took a class in making a Windsor chair with Curtis Buchanan at Drew & Louise Langsner’s Country Workshops. At the time, most of my woodworking revolved around making JA style ladderback chairs and some basketmaking. I forget what, if anything, else I made then. That class was Curtis’ first - my “partner” in the class was Jennie Alexander. One thing I remember clearly is that we were the last 2 to finish assembling our chairs. 

1987, me on the left, JA 5th from left. Curtis center

The following year Curtis taught it again and that year I was the intern at Country Workshops. So I got to help out where I could, but also pick up more techniques and practice too. Between that first class and about 1993 I made somewhere around 40 windsors - Curtis provided me with plans for several different chairs - in the class we made a bowback side chair - but later I made continuous arm chairs, sackbacks, comb-backs, fan back side chairs, settees and even a couple of rockers. Then from 1994-2018? I made exactly one windsor chair - a kid’s sackback. I had gone down the 17th century oak rabbit hole and had stopped making the windsors.