Chair Nerd Profile: Randy Ogle
Oh the joys of stumbling upon a Chair Shop on your first day in a new city! Dave and I were ready to get out of town last summer so we arrived at Arrowmont as soon as we possibly could to explore a little bit before the class. We unpacked in our cozy rooms and […]
Photo Essay: Weaving Authentic Hickory Bark
Snow fell on my house today, so it’s the perfect day to finish my winter blog series on authentic hickory bark. I have actually written this post three times, captioning each photo three times only to have them pop up blank on the preview. The photos aren’t necessarily in order (though they show up that […]
Newberry & Sons Chairs, now that’s what I call authentic….
It ought to be firmly established by now that we are BIG fans of weaving seats with authentic bark here at Hobie’s Porch Chair Caning (Go Chair Repair!). This material is not mass-manufactured in China, it Paul Bunyan/Davy Crockett stuff that epitomizes life for most folks in the 19th century/pre-depression era of the 20th century. […]
Processing Authentic Bark at Brian Boggs Chairmakers
Why is authentic bark so much more expensive than manufactured reed? The Short Answer: Authentic bark is time consuming, back breaking, and potentially hand mangling work. Reed comes from China, and as we all know, that means you don’t pay the real value of the product, the fossil fuel it takes to get here, etc….but […]
Authentic Bark vs. Manufactured Reed for Splint Chairs
I admit it was only recently that I wove my first authentic bark seat. I had a helluva time finding it when I first started out. Eventually, I met several chair makers through the Southern Highland Craft Guild and I literally begged them for years to let me come watch/help harvest bark (achcoughJim McGie & […]
