DEFINITIONS: Making and repairing of chairs and stools. Some chairmakers are called "bodgers," meaning a highly-skilled woodworker who uses traditional woodturning techniques to make chair legs and other cylindrical parts of chairs from green wood. Bodgers are also known as chair-bodgers.
KENTUCKY CHAIRMAKERS:
Mike Angel
Red Dog & Company (Laurel Co.: London, KY)
Chester Cornett (1913-1981)
Beyond the Narrow Sky (2014, Morehead State University)
John Keeton
John Keeton (Woodturner/Windsor Chairs - Clark Co.: Winchester)
Irvin Messer
His work was described in: Martin, Charles E. "'Make 'Em Fast and Shed 'Em Quick': The Appalachian Craftsman Revisited," Appalachian Journal 9 (1981), 4-19.
Terry Ratliff
B. Terry Ratliff (Chairs, stools, carvings - Floyd Co.: Martin, KY)
(Featured in: Glenn, Andrew D. Backwoods Chairmakers: In Search of the Appalachian Ladderback Chairmaker. Lost Arts Press, 2023.)
Justin Roberts (willow chairs and sculptures)
Dewey Thompson
Chairmaker (Appalshop Film)
Don Weber
Handcraft Woodworks (Don Weber - Garrard Co.: Paint Lick)
Don Weber makes Welsh stick chairs. strip canoes,
and bamboo fly rods.
Willow Chair by Justin Roberts
Historic Chairmaking:
Well before 1800, the earliest settlers in Kentucky towns needed chairs. Some craftsmen were able to build seating on their own, but there is evidence of early professional crafters, such as James Harwick...
Chairmaking Bibliography:
Jones, Michael Owen. Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity, University Press of Kentucky, 1989.
__________. " 'For Myself I Likes a 'Decent, Plain-Made Chair': The Concept of Taste and the Traditional Arts in America." Western Folklore 31 (January, 1972): 27-52.
__________. The Hand Made Object and Its Maker. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
__________. "A Traditional Chairmaker at Work", Mountain Life and Work XLIII:l (Spring 1967), 10-13.
Martin, Charles E. "'Make 'Em Fast and Shed 'Em Quick': The Appalachian Craftsman Revisited," Appalachian Journal 9 (1981), 4-19.
