It’s Up to Jeff

I think it’s been about three years that I’ve been telling Jeff Lefkowitz that I was going to send him a Temple Chair to have patterns drawn. If you don’t know, Jeff has embarked on an incredibly generous journey of documentation of the works of current chair makers. He started by making plans for Brian Boggs’ Berea Chair and has documented most of Curtis Buchanan’s chairs. He’s also done a few of mine as well as other makers.

It’s a huge service to the woodworking community, now and for posterity. I think it was in the middle of the pandemic when I first discussed sending the Temple chair, but then I became consumed with the effort to pick up the pieces after the pandemic, a move, a house purchase, a new travisher… I firmly believe that most life events eat at least a year. Moving, it’s a year, get a puppy, it’s a year, starting a new job, it’s a year, and so on. So here I am, finally getting the sample done.

I used to marvel at the preferences of designers. That they would be so specific seemed baffling. “No, that looks wrong”, “It’s way too thick there”, “That detail should move 1/16” ”. It taken making lots of different things over years to start to feel my own sensitivity develop. Please don’t ever get me wrong, I don’t see myself as a great designer, but I think I know the sport enough to enjoy the action and even make a play now and again.

Some designs take me years to work out and some like this one, rumble in my head for a while and then pop out fully formed. My design and prototype took a day and then the final details settled in over a few iterations. It’s a simple form, an exercise in restraint, but I am somehow very picky that it should be just as it is. That’s how I know it’s ready for Jeff.

Here is a video of the actual design taking shape. I did it in Procreate on my IPad, which is a painting and design program, that also records your every move. You can see that I started with a crude mock up, sitting on a stool, that I photographed, dropped into the program and started designing. I love this program, while it doesn’t give 3-D capability or measurements, I can work out dimensions and big ideas, then I go to paper and pencil to draw.

You can see as I play with the crest shape, the spindle direction and the legs. It really happened fast. The first one still lives and works in my shop.

I’m going to be making a video and illustrated guide to go along with the plans.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

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