Inspecting an antique chair at St Fagans National Museum of History.
I’ve known Chris Williams for a few years, and I now feel we are destined to have our lives intertwined for the rest of my days. There simply isn’t anyone else who thinks about chairs in the the way I do. And when I say chairs, I mean Welsh chairs.
I don’t know if I have any real Welsh in my blood. My latest Ancestry.com profile says 22 percent of my DNA is from England, Wales and nearby. While that’s something, I do know that Welsh chairs are etched in my brain.
When I pulled up to Chris’s tidy home in Llanybri late Tuesday I night, I hugged him, and we talked about chairs until midnight. When I left Saturday morning, our last words (before a warning about a tricky turn on my trip) were about chairs.
And the rest of the time in the middle was all about chairs as well.
Chris Williams points out an armbow growing in a tree.
During my visit, Chris was building a chair in his garage, sneaking off at odd hours to fashion its sticks. Plus, he had two recently completed chairs in the guest room. One was a new design he has been working on (follow him on Instagram if you want see its development) and the other was for his book “The Life & Work of John Brown.”
All three are markedly different. So we spent hours (apologies to Chris’s wife, Claire) talking about the details down to the facets, grain lines and fibers.
While we were muddling minutiae, Chris would stop and exclaim: “You couldn’t say something like that in front of John Brown. He’d tell you to (expletive deleted). He was all about the form.”
Like naughty schoolboys, we did it anyway. Apologies to the memory of John Brown.
I’m sitting at Pantry Fields, the homestead where John Brown wrote “Welsh Stick Chairs,” in a massive chair that was built by John Brown. And I’m surrounded by JB’s family and friends, who generously allowed me into their world on Tuesday for a chat and a delicious bowl of cawl.
It’s a scene I could have never even imagined when I purchased a copy of “Welsh Stick Chairs” in the 1990s – a book that changed the course of my life as a woodworker. Across the table from me is Annie Seymour, JB’s ex-wife and potter. To my left is Molly Brown, one of JB’s daughters and an illustrator, and David Sears, Annie’s husband, woodworker, brewer and long-time companion to JB. To my right is Chris Williams, who had brought us all together.
I was in such a shock that I barely spoke for the first hour. Two things restored my tongue.
The first was Pantry Fields itself. Though I was thousands of miles away from the wilds of Arkansas, the environment felt familiar. Like my family and our farm, the people sitting around this oak table had built Pantry Fields from nothing using the materials around them – railroad ties, recycled windows and even two railway carriages.
The second thing was the wooden item in the image at the top of this blog entry. David Sears laid it on the table and explained.
It was a plug for a peephole that John Brown had used. When he heard someone pull up in a car, JB would remove the plug and peer out to see who it was in order to decide if he would answer the door or not. JB had drawn an eye on the end of the plug, which was a delicious touch to a quirky story that explained a lot about the man. I couldn’t help but laugh.
Pantry Fields, as always, is a work in progress. Annie and David are expanding and improving the buildings. There’s a gallery filled with beautiful pottery, furniture, books and prints. Even an ersatz and delightful bar that David has built. It seems as if something is brewing (and not just David’s beer).
This was just 10 minutes of my first journey to Wales, a five-day trip that has been a visual and visceral tsunami. I hardly know where to begin writing about it.
In some small way I feel a bit like like JB, deep in the workshop and looking out through a peephole at the world. And wondering what is coming down the drive in my direction.
I am particularly pleased to tell you that Chris Williams will travel from Wales to the Lost Art Press storefront in Covington, Ky., on May 20-24, 2019, to teach his class on building Welsh stick chairs.
Chris worked with John Brown in Wales for many years, refining the design of this chair while cranking out hundreds of them to sell. I know of no one else alive who knows more about building these chairs than Chris.
After assisting in his class last year, I can say that his approach to making these chairs is remarkable. Chris seeks to teach students how to make these chairs with a minimum of jigs and just a small set of tools. You don’t need a shavehorse, and most of the work is with handplanes.
And because of Chris’s long friendship with John Brown (who passed away 10 years ago) you can almost hear John Brown’s voice in the lessons – “think round,” “think flat” and “I don’t give a monkey’s….” In addition to the lessons in woodworking, Chris is keen on explaining John Brown’s world – how JB approached the craft, embraced handwork and broached no compromise.
Most of all, however, students walk away with one beautiful chair. These chairs are incredibly comfortable, roomy and stout. And this chair is what launched me on my chairmaking journey more than 15 years ago and remains my obsession.
Because of the intense nature of this class, we request that students in the class have built at least one chair before attending. The class can be demanding at times. Your tools need to be sharp and ready to go. This is not a beginner’s course.
For full details on the class, go to our registration page. Registration opens at 10 a.m. Eastern on Oct. 12. There will be only six students, and I’ll be assisting Chris again, so there will be lots of personal attention throughout the week.
I’ve just finished up designing the third new chapter for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” on the boarded settle chair. (What is the deal with this expansion? Here’s an FAQ.)
Thanks to all the odd angles, this boarded chair is great fun to build and is surprisingly comfortable. And the lumber bill is only $55. It is an imposing piece of furniture, and the bold curves I cut on the sides only make it more eye-catching. To turn down the volume a bit, I painted the sides black, which allows the chair to recede a bit in a room.
This design is based on historical examples from Northern Wales and Northern England that I’ve seen in furniture books. Sometimes called “lambing chairs,” many of the originals are in pine.
Below is the link to download this chapter. Here are the usual caveats:
The writing is still a bit rough. Megan Fitzpatrick edited it today, but there might be a few typos we still need to clean up for the print edition.
The construction drawing is still crude. In the printed version there will be a nice copperplate etching from Briony Morrow-Cribbs in its place.
This chapter is intended for those who already own the current edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” So this chapter is offered on the honor system. Those who download the chapter without owning the book will be forced to play dice with wombat poop (which is apparently square).
That’s it. Thanks to everyone who has bought the book, and I hope you are enjoying the new chapters. There are two (maybe three) more to go.
We are asked regularly by customers and retailers about the status of upcoming books and other projects at Lost Art Press. I sometimes hesitate to talk too much about upcoming projects – or put a release date to them – because people get upset if we miss those dates.
That said, here is the list of active projects at Lost Art Press. I offer it with these two caveats:
We don’t have firm deadlines at Lost Art Press. We print a book when it’s as good as we can make it – no less.
The information below is all I have. If a project isn’t listed here, the author is still researching it, writing it or trying to return from falling off the edge of the earth. So asking me about Andrew Lunn’s book on sawmaking isn’t going to garner a response – I simply don’t know.
Here we go:
“Shaker Inspirations” by Christian Becksvoort This is our final release for 2018 and should go to press tomorrow. It is part autobiography, part lesson in craftsmanship, part business treatise and part measured drawings to some of Chris’s best pieces. If you know Chris, you will find this book to be Classic Chris – plainspoken and opinionated – with the chops to back it up.
Lost Art Press “Blackout” T-shirt This is the other product we are offering for the holidays. It’s an inexpensive dark blue T-shirt with a black Lost Art Press logo on it. We’ve been experimenting with this sort of shirt for a while to see how it ages. It’s awesome. These should be available in three weeks.
Lost Art Press Chore Coats The factory making the final batch of chore coats in Japanese cotton has been dragging its feet. Officials there promise we’ll have coats in three weeks. Don’t hold your breath. For the new edition of the chore coat in American-made cotton, we are waiting for prototypes to arrive from two vendors.
“The Difference Makers” by Marc Adams This will be a huge, beautiful and inspiring book. Marc Adams, owner and founder of the largest woodworking school in North America, has written a book that profiles more than 30 of the best furniture makers, toolmakers and artists he’s encountered through his school. Each profile features a biography of the person, Marc’s personal tale of his history with the person and lots of gorgeous photos of finished work. Editing this book has been both humbling and inspiring. Definitely 2019.
“Joiner’s Work” by Peter Follansbee We’re all eagerly awaiting Peter’s follow-up to “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree,” which will delve into Peter’s case work, boxes and chairs. The book is tantalizingly close to being in our hands so we can finish editing it and designing it. Let’s hope for 2019.
“Make a Chair from a Tree, Third Edition” by Jennie Alexander Our dearest hope is to get this book out by the end of the summer in 2019. The text is in pretty good shape now (thanks to Larry Barrett), and I am going to Baltimore in October to finish up the new photography we need for this new edition.
“The Life & Work of John Brown” by Christopher Williams This project is beginning to pick up steam, and I hope the research and writing will be done by the end of 2019. I am off to Wales tomorrow to work with Chris Williams a bit, meet some of John Brown’s family, see some chairs and (I hope) look through archival photographs for the book.
“Country Woodcraft, Then & Now” (working title) by Drew Langsner Drew is updating his classic “Country Woodcraft,” which was published way before anyone used the term “green woodworking.” It was an important book that launched a lot of woodworkers into pursuing traditional crafts. The new edition will feature the book’s original contents (slightly edited in places) plus a big dose of new chapters that reflect what Drew learned by a lifetime in the woods and at the bench.
“The Anarchist’s Design Book (Expanded)” by Christopher Schwarz My goal is to finish writing this updated version by the end of 2018 so it can be published in 2019. I have only two more projects to build – though I desperately want to add a third project to my to-do list. If you have questions about this expansion edition, read this FAQ.
We have lots more projects in the works from the likes of Nancy Hiller, Jarrod Dahl, Vic Tesolin, Don Williams and Brendan Gaffney. But I don’t have any updates to report on those books.
