by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 20, 2023 | Classes, Samuel Wing Book Project | 5 Comments
Last week I had four friends over for a trial run of a class set in the year 1803, building a copy of Samuel Wing's loop back chair. It was a great week. We all learned a lot, none more than me. Thanks to Damon O'Gan for the black-and-white photos below: We split,...
by Elia Bizzarri | Dec 29, 2022 | Classes | 0 Comments
For the first time in three years, I am teaching a chair class. Or really a chair-and-table class. I'm co-teaching with my friend Eric Cannizzaro for two weeks at Penland in the NC mountains. Come spend your days building chairs and your evenings watching the...
by Elia Bizzarri | Sep 21, 2022 | Classes | 6 Comments
"I was talking with Dave Sawyer last week and I asked him if you could go work with him. He said 'yes.'" I was standing in Curtis Buchanan's garden, helping him pick vegetables. I had been apprenticing with Curtis for six years and he was worried that I was...
by Elia Bizzarri | Aug 26, 2022 | Classes | 1 Comment
My blacksmith friend Peter Ross called last week. "I bought a couple lathes in an auction. Could you help me move them this afternoon?" This can be a fearsome request, for Peter has a habit of buying machinist lathes weighing in the thousands of...
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 25, 2022 | Chair Stories, Classes | 5 Comments
As most of you know, I'm at Curtis Buchanan's designing a Loop Back Arm chair. On the second day we had a visitor from NC, Reid Gamble who has been apprenticing with laddarback chairmaker Lyle Wheeler. First we bored for the bent stretcher. Curtis had to climb...
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 23, 2022 | Chair Stories, Classes | 3 Comments
I am spending the next few days visiting with Curtis and Marilyn Buchanan. Eric Cannizzaro is here too. During the day we're working an a new loop back arm chair design for which Curtis hopes to publish a set of plans. At night, we are eating Marilyn's good food and...
by Elia Bizzarri | Dec 27, 2021 | Chair Stories, Classes | 2 Comments
Yesterday, my father-in-law and I delivered a set of five chairs for Josh and his wife's new house. We met at a horse park and transferred the blanket-wrapped chairs into Josh's car. As I wrapped the chairs last week, I remembered this story: It was a...
by Elia Bizzarri | Nov 5, 2021 | Chairs For Sale, Classes | 0 Comments
I've never offered chairs for sale at a discount, but I find myself drowning in chairs. Many were built in classes, both online and in-person, while others I made by accident. I am offering a discount on them for the month of November (except for the last...
by Elia Bizzarri | Mar 31, 2021 | Classes | 0 Comments
"What did you do during the pandemic, " friends will soon be asking. Now you can have a good answer: "I made a set of French eating spoons for our dining table." Boy, will they be impressed. First we'll learn to carve a French eating...
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 22, 2021 | Classes | 1 Comment
I first made one of Curtis Buchanan's Velda's Chairs about six or eight years ago when a neighbor came by my shop and ordered two bar stools and a settee in Velda's style. They wanted the chairs unpainted, so I drove three hours to find walnut...
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