Lost Art Press

It Must Have a Name (It Does)

Posted on by Lost Art Press
A travisher cleans up a cup.

I don’t like making up names for furniture components. Not because I want to be pedantic. But because I want to avoid confusion. If something has a name (fiddleback maple) I would rather use that name than make one up (maple on a lot of acid).

One name that has escaped me for years is on a chair. The swoops next to the seat’s pommel – what are those areas called? I’ve consulted all my furniture books and haven’t found anything that made sense. So I grudgingly called them “leg swoops” in “The Stick Chair Book Revised Edition.”

Last week Aspen Golann was helping teach a class here and I asked her if she knew what they were called.

After a minute of thinking, Aspen remembered that the conservators at Winterthur called them “cups.”

Brilliant and perfect – cups! That’s what I’m calling them from here on out. I updated the anatomy section of my book to reflect this. I also added a few more terms that I stumbled on while digging through a bunch of books on chairs. The three anatomy drawings are included below. If you download them and print them out, they will be high resolution (about 300 dpi).

Better hang them up in your shop and memorize them, because there will be a quiz.

— Christopher Schwarz

29 thoughts on “It Must Have a Name (It Does)”

    1. Not if you speak one of those languages (German, for example) where gloves are called “hand shoes”.

      On the other hand (ha!), the terminology update introduced here gives quite a new meaning to being in one’s cups … 😇

      1. I always thought and used the term ‘Back sticks’ not ‘Long sticks’ even though they are long.

    1. I was just thinking this “cups” term will work well until unless someone starts assigning letters according to size or quality. Then you went there. It still works though

  5. The drawings in my copy of The Stick Chair Book have been annotated, with a red pen…

  6. Many years ago, I spent some time at Drew Langsner’s. We referred to the area of the seat where your butt rests as the “pond”. Don’t know if that is a traditional name for that area or not, but it helps identify a specific area of the seat. Have you encountered the use of “pond” by anyone else?

  7. This reminds me of the World War II poem ‘Naming of Parts’ by Henry Reed.
    “…And this is the piling swivel,
    Which in your case you have not got….”

  8. Hey, I like those images. You know what would be a great seller? I know you probably have never considered this before, but what about…posters?

  9. So if a client’s butt is on the large side will you be adding an extra design consideration that the cup might runneth over?

  14. Hmm…when we visited our local chair factory last year in Scottsdale, AZ they referred to them as “cheeks”. Cups is nice, but I’m stickin with cheeks. 🤣

    1. I don’t know, Ryan. It seems to me that the cups cup your cheeks. But that’s me. 🙂

  16. Saddle. In the land of my birth and rearing, besides the leather that is often attached to a horse’s back, a saddle was commonly known as the swale/pass between two mountains. And, it seems that somewhere in my past 54+ years, I’ve heard this term applied to the swales between the pommel and the spindle deck?

  17. Brilliant, I like it. When you are able to name is thing, you become more aware of it and it’s nuances – like leaves on a trees. It’s also best not to try to reinvent the wheel!

Comments are closed.