Designing Chairs from Scrap and Rejects

We made chairs for the Project Art Gallery Show.

We are supporters of Project Art, a Wimberley organization that promotes art and craft in schools through student mentorships, workshops, gallery showings, and such.  Autumn mentored a student who built a desk in our shop.

Project Art has a gallery.  They scheduled a show for objects based on chairs: drawings, photos, paintings, collages, crazy notions, and things to sit on.   Three to four months before the show, we were asked if we’d contribute--which meant: design chairs and build them.

I didn't want to, a chair design is a lot of work, but I said yes.

To begin, I dumped out a scrap barrel.  In those barrels, we put the bandsaw offcuts, pieces with defects, and other midsize pieces that won't make parts.  The radius pieces cut off from rocking chair crests immediately suggested backs and seats.  I had to find wooden rippings that could hold the seats and backs in proper place so they fit people (most people) when sitting in comfort and good posture.  I drew full size and I mocked-up, blocked-up, and sat.

Assembling was physical.

A chair: a sturdy, and pleasingly comfortable prototype, came a month after dumping out the barrel.  It wasn't a full month's effort, but there is a lot of time in it.  Searching for terms to describe its style, Artificial Intelligence led me to call it Structural Expressionism--a clumsy and presumptuous collection of syllables, but not without some bearings.  Several people using their native intelligence have called it Industrial.  We may attempt to perfect a version and put it in production (i.e., try to sell it).  I rather like it.

Austin didn't want to design and build a chair either.  Said no.  Felt bad.  Said yes.  He design and built an original, sculptural, and comfortable chair in a weekend.  He used reject parts and larger scrap from the firewood stack.  We don't know what style it is either, but it is for sure the only one now or ever.

The chair sold the first weekend.  That woman loved it.

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