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The Lost Art Press storefront is open tomorrow (Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019) from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. for all your woodworking questions and holiday (or personal) shopping needs (in addition to the Lost Art Press books, we have a Crucible Tool lump hammer or two, some scrapers and burnishers, and five holdfasts).

Brendan Gaffney has a chair (or nine) on which he’s working, and I’ll be finishing up the tills on the XL Anarchist’s Tool Chest I’m making for a customer, then – depending on how busy we are – installing the hinges on the lid, and the rest of the hardware. And possibly mixing up some milk paint.

At 2 p.m., I’ll give a free presentation on cutting through dovetails – and tricks for fitting them. (I promise there will be no Shakespeare jokes.)

And late in the day, it’s possible the globe-hopping Christopher Schwarz will make a brief appearance (but only if his plane is on time and he’s not too tuckered out).

We’re at 837 Willard St., Covington, Ky., 41011.

— Fitz

p.s. Plus a reminder that tomorrow and December 14 are the last days on which the storefront will be open until June 13, 2020 (we’re planning to be slightly less busy 2020).

p.p.s. Yes, I know those pins in the picture are far too far above the Moxon vise…but the piece is almost as tall as am I, so no choice.

Today began with a jolt. After a long morning at the Cliffs of Moher, Lucy and I hopped in our rental car to head to Dublin. But first we had to face Corkscrew Hill.

Just as I finished the last of the hill’s switchbacks, an oncoming lorry (semi) ran us off the road and into a berm. Price: One front tyre. I changed the tyre in the spitting rain, and we limped to a repair shop to get the car sorted and inspected.

This resulted in the best “bon mot” of the trip. We ended up in a Polish tyre shop in a small village. They replaced the tyre in 15 minutes (amazing) and charged us only 65 Euros. As I paid the bill I was shivering and sopping wet – my pants and shoes caked in mud.

“You are on holiday?” the owner asked, looking out at the rain coming down. I nodded. “You are in the wrong country.”

After arriving in Dubin, we each ate a quick sandwich, and I had my first pint of Guinness in Dublin – right across the street from the brewery. Not bad. Then we trekked to the National Museum of Ireland and stormed the furniture on display, including the Irish Country Furniture Exhibit.

When I entered the room, it was like having an eye exam. The lighting was intense and marked by dark slashes, and it bewildered me. After a few seconds, the main display came into focus: 10 chairs in little backlit stalls. The good news: You could get within a few inches of all of the chairs. The bad news, the backlighting was so intense that it was difficult to see (or photograph) the objects.

All of the photos below have been heavily Photoshopped so you can see some details.

I have tons of notes on each of the chairs, but those would bore most of you. So we’ll just look at the photos for now.

After that exhibit, the museum had a good number of other vernacular chairs on display with fairly standard lighting. Those are shown below.

Tomorrow, Lucy and I head to Slane in County Meath to meet with Mark Jenkinson, who runs The Cider Mill and is a long-time chair collector. This should be the highlight of the geeky chair segment of our vacation.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. For those of you who think I am abusing Lucy, we are doing lots of non-woodworking stuff. Don’t believe me? I have three words for you: National Leprechaun Museum. And yes, we’re doing the “after dark” adults-only tour. Pray for me.

After years of studying Welsh chairs, my mind turned to the map. Wales has a long history that is intertwined with its neighbors – for better or for worse. Could there be similar chairs built in Scotland, Devon, Cornwall and Ireland?

The answer is, of course, yes. Faced with somewhat similar materials, geography, economy, oppression and tools, it would follow that stick chairs would be the result. After years of reading about Irish vernacular furniture, today Lucy and I plunged head first into it at the Irish Agricultural Museum on the grounds of Johnstown Castle. The museum is mostly about farm implements and transportation. But there are two areas that were captivating.

First was the exhibit on the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century. This fungal event changed the course of history for Ireland (which lost 25 percent of its population), the United States (which absorbed many of them) and furniture, which became weirdly tied to the famine by antiques dealers. They now label anything a “famine chair” as a result. The dealers are usually wrong, but the association does raise people’s interest in the furniture.

Second was the “Irish Country Furniture Exhibition,” a partnership between the Irish Agricultural Museum and the Irish Country Furniture Society. This exhibit features all manner of vernacular pieces from the 18th to 20th centuries. You could write a book about the fine pieces in this collection. We spent our time focused on the chairs in the exhibit.

Side note. Lucy is now on her third glass of wine. This is our first vacation alone in two decades. She reports: “I like chairs. They looked comfortable. We totally could have gotten over the wire to sit in them but we didn’t because we follow the law; hashtag respect the Irish.”

After almost two hours of examining and photographing the chairs, we headed west to Doolin to see a beautiful sunset and eat some seafood. This evening I’m poring over the hundreds of photos I took and trying to make sense of them. But it takes a while to process the overall forms and their details.

Here are a few snapshots of the chairs I liked in particular.

— Christopher Schwarz 

One of the unexpected treats of visiting Wales this month was getting to visit the shop of Tim Bowen, an antiques dealer in Ferryside who specializes in vernacular furniture from Wales and the rest of Britain.

If you like Welsh stick chairs, or vernacular furniture in general, Tim’s Instagram account (@tim_bowen_antiques) is a great way to keep up with the things he picks up and shows the world. Chairmaker Chris Williams, who has been friends with Tim for years, took us over and Tim pulled out some interesting chairs from his shop and his personal collection for us to examine.

My two favorite pieces were a chair from Tim’s personal collection that looks like it was made in a barn with just a few tools. The armbow has a slashing scarf joint across its back, and the whole chair looks like it was made with both urgency and skill.

The other chair had a lovely single-piece arm and traces of early – if not original – paint.

All of the chairs Tim showed us were good enough to populate a museum gallery. And they represented a broad swath of Welsh chairmaking, from the craft at its most elemental all the way up to a chair that was almost as refined at the chairs that Chris Williams makes, with delicate decorative details.

Plus, I got to touch the chairs. All over. Feel the flats on the stretchers and the shape of the sticks. You can’t get that at a museum (not without getting thrown out shortly afterward).

Tim spent a good couple hours with us, patiently explaining what he knew about each chair – and what he didn’t. After decades in the trade, Tim is careful about making many official declarations about the date, provenance or even species of wood in any particular piece. He’s seen too many chairs in his career.

This is our last full day in Wales – tomorrow we head to Ireland for some rest and (sorry Lucy) more chairs.

— Christopher Schwarz