I received an email recently from Sieur Jean-Francois Theoret, who is also a professional Windsor chairmaker. His business is called Mount Royal Windsors. Sieur J-F, (pronounced Gee-Eff) as he is known at The Institute, informed me that he has been accepted as a member of the Quebec Arts Council. He will be exhibiting at the
This one is too much fun to pass up. I thank Sir Mark Ferraro for bringing it to my attention. On August 23, the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a press release on its web site announcing a voluntary recall of Windsor chairs by the retailer J. C. Penny. You can see
This post is a continuation of the previous. If you have not that one, you may want to begin with it, and then read this. Research is another of The Institute’s activities. My interest inWindsors and my curiosity about them is constant. We are able to teach chairmaking effectively, because through research I figured out
Several years ago I was helping a student who was both a surgeon and a teacher at a medical institute. He looked at me quizzically and asked, “The Windsor Institute? An institute is a place that teaches, researches, develops, and publishes. Do you do all those things?” Yup. We sure do. My wife Susanna and
The August 20 continuous arm chair class is wrapping up and 16 guys are putting finishing touches on their chairs. Mine is done, and I am very pleased with the way it came out. I am frequently asked what is my favorite chair? There is no debate. It is the c-arm (our short hand for
In the last post I described Windsor chairs as perfection in design, durability, and comfort. Consider the time period and the woodworking culture when Windsors were developed and it is no surprise that the old guys achieved such an extraordinary accomplishment. Let’s first dispel the false notion of Windsor chairs as country chairs. This misconception dates to the
I just finished a telephone interview with a reporter in the mid-west. She is writing an article about Windsor chairs. I do several of these interviews a month. They are a bit tedious, in that the questions are always the same, and the reporter is going to get a lot of it wrong anyway. However, I
Sir Ron Tatman is vacationing here in Hampton and is helping us teach the August 6 sack back class. His wife Jill and his two daughters (who have both taken sack back with their father) are at the beach surfing. While chatting with me this morning Sir Ron commented on some of the things he has read
Everyone who has taken a Windsor chairmaking course here knows that humor is a major part of The Windsor Institute’s culture. While we take chairmaking very seriously, there’s no reason we can’t have a lot of fun doing it. My favorite part of The Windsor Chronicles was our humor feature named “A Duck Walks into a
During the July 23 sack back class Sir Gordon Keller became the most recent inductee into the Chairmakers Hall of Fame. That makes Sir Gordon the most recent Immortal, and the first since 2004. His innovation is known as Keller’s Colors. The innovation solves a problem that has plagued Windsor chairmaking students as long as