Caseworks – Chapel Hill This is one in a series of posts about artists in the Orange County Artists Guild. What is your medium? Why do you love it? How did you get interested in it? As a young man I was making oil paintings, and the fine arts were my first love. The decorative Arts came later. In my…
Chair Made by Elia Bizzarri If you haven't had a chance to stop by Elia Bizzarri's shop in Hillsborough and meet him, this story might give you a feeling for one of things he enjoys about making and delivering his Windsor chairs. Here is what he has to say about his craft: With the delivery of each chair order, the customer gets…
If there is one iconic tool of the chairmaker, it is the drawknife. In my youth, both Drew Langsner and John Alexander taught me its use. I had the drawknife licked, or so I thought. Several years later, 17-year-old Curtis Buchanan agreed for me spend a week in his Jonesborough, TN Windsor Chair Shop. Curtis effortlessly and without measurement whittled a complicated…
My day started out by catching a field mouse in the house. Thankfully, the animal was unhurt, and I did not need to take it to a place like Triangle Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. This wildlife hospital that had served the entire Triangle had to shut down. Many have listened to me lament over this heartbreaking loss. Now, prior to spring,…
Those that wonder about the background of a custom furniture maker might be surprised to learn that furniture making is actually my third career. My first career was in physics; after receiving a Ph.D. in Physics at The Johns Hopkins University I did astrophysics research involving design and instrumentation of a specialized telescope on a mountaintop in Arizona. My second…