New Beginning, 2025 and more...

I hope you had a peaceful transition into the new year! Before diving in, I want to express my thanks to everyone for joining me here and especially those supporting Chair Notes financially. It really makes a big difference in my life and ability to keep creating.

Also, Karen is compiling the current class offerings and I’ll post it as soon as I have it.

I’m tending to lots of new projects I want to share. Obviously, the big one is the workshop. I was able to get the slab in during a warm spell. I’m still trying to get it all closed in and ready for a February class, while also coping with the reality that it might be too ambitious. Here is a short video of where we are with the project. The plumbing, slab and drainage are all in, just lots of carpentry, electric and heat to attend to.

I also have begun the process of building a new website. I’ve decided to bring all my various locations on the internet under one website. No longer any need to go find videos or plans with links. It shouldn’t take long and once it’s done, I’ll be introducing the new Temple Chair video, plans and handbook there. Videos that are hosted on Vimeo On Demand will also migrate to the new site, but don’t worry if you already purchased them, you will have full access to your purchase and will get notice with directions to help you watch them. I’m also adding a community board to my site as well, where chairmakers can share questions, ideas and projects. This is such a generous and passionate community, I look forward to having a meeting place on my site.

Perhaps most exciting at the moment, is that I’m getting back to making new work! Aspen Golann invited me to collaborate on a piece and I’m going to share the process of building the piece with you here. We worked on the initial design and drawings while I was trapped in the house with Covid a few months back. Here are some of the images from the “drawing stage”.

It will be going in a spot in a corner, which was the only design parameter we had to go on.

We did add arms after we secured the commision, to help broaden the range of folks who could use the piece.

Here is are a couple of videos of the drawing being made from a small mock up made of wire, tape and wood.

Aspen and I haven’t collaborated on a piece in 5 years. We have a very natural way of working together, which is very mutually beneficial. After having to make all the decisions about my house and workshop on my own, it’s a pleasure to have another brain involved in the process.

Here’s another video of my Covid addledd brain doodling away.

In case you are wondering what it takes to arrive at this point in the process. There were 37 drawings before we settled on the submission and countless discussions, revisions and calls. As I’ve mentioned so many times, keeping the idea fluid and open to explore for as long as possible yielded the final design. At one point, I was drawing our initial idea too quickly and the line on the top crest, which was supposed to be continuous, didn’t meet up correctly but had a huge gap. Aspen and I jumped on the accident as worthy and soon designed the rest of the piece around it. Stay tuned, there is going to be lots more as we embark on this build.