The Chair That Ran Away To The Woods

Forever the challenge is to get from an inspired beginning to a satisfied end without falling while you wander, bumping your head and forgetting where you were going in the first place.

That would be the muddleheaded approach to woodworking that sends you in every direction with the exception of the one place you want to go. But sometimes wonderful things come from a wander through the woods.

I was asked to make a chair, a stick chair that makes the most of the bits and bobs we have hiding in the shed, garden and woodpile. But I couldn't think which way to go. So I wandered.

I thought about memories of old Welsh stick chairs I’d seen, Jögge Sundqvist’s folk art carving style, and Dan Mack’s stick chairs that inspired my early work back in the 90s, but muddleheaded I remained.

Which is, or course, who I am, a muddleheaded man