It was long but it wasn't strange

My southern trip

[been a while between posts, this one is available to all subscribers. Just a wrap-up of a trip I took the past 2 weeks. More to come…]

I apologize for the lack of posts here recently. I’ve just today returned from a long road trip - July 5-19. I loaded a couple of posts to show up while I was traveling, but then couldn’t keep up once those were done. Here goes with the next flurry. The first part was a carving class at Lost Art Press. Often it’s a carved box class, but this time I opted to just carve designs for 4 days. Seven students tackling some pretty involved carving patterns. It was an easy class, no project. Just carving patterns. Some carved this design, some carved that design.

Lost Art Press carving class

I then detoured on my way home to visit my old friends Drew & Louise Langsner in western North Carolina. We first met 44 years ago when I wandered down there to take Jennie Alexander’s 2nd chair-making class in the early years of Country Workshops. Eventually I was a fixture there, in and out of the Langsner’s place yearly from 1985-1993 or so. 

looking up toward the building that housed the workshops

This visit had no agenda, no schedule other than a beginning and end. We ate, swam and swapped stories - both old and new. It was great to connect with them. We last saw each other in 2018 when they came to a festival I was part of in Plymouth, Massachusetts. That was a great time, but we were part of a large crowd. This past weekend, we had ourselves to ourselves and could wander physically and mentally as it suited us. 

For a detour during my detour Drew and I went up one day for a visit to our friend Curtis Buchanan. That visit, like the main one, included food, stories and chairs/chairmaking. Curtis lives in the most idyllic little town, it really is like something out of the movies. We walked downtown and everyone we passed offered a greeting to Curtis by name. We got to see some of his latest chairs that he’s working on for the new plans he’s doing with Jeff Lefkowitz. 

Curtis’ newest comb back

Drew and I spent a day sifting through some Country Workshops’ archival photos. We saw lots of things there that spurred more stories, some we both knew, some new to me. I plucked out a couple, including one of the earliest classes - Wille Sundqvist’s spoon-carving class in 1979. (Wille taught twice that summer - I’m not sure which session this is and it doesn’t matter.) Those classes were the beginning of Country Workshops. (Wille on the left, in the apron. Drew middle of rear row, w red suspenders.)

the first season at Country Workshops, 1979

After that there was 2 days of research for my craft genealogy project. One of those days was at the research library at the Winterthur Museum - to fill in my missing bits in the Jennie Alexander notebooks. Just the first half of those notebooks - 1973/4 to the mid-to-late 1980s. As it is, I shot a ridiculous number of photos (over 1,200) so I could read the notebooks in the comfort of my own home.

some of the Jennie Alexander papers at Winterthur

Digital cameras/devices sure have simplified gathering that sort of material. Just spend about 5 1/2 hours turning pages and clicking buttons.

I had the greatest time reconnecting with my old friends - woodworking has brought me some wonderful people. And some great birds at Langsner’s, like this hooded warbler (Setophaga citrina)

hooded warbler, male

Today is un-packing, then back to work.