A Lecture Series In the Ballroom: Anyone Can Be a Chairmaker

Join us in the ballroom of the Scudder House, for interesting and thought-provoking talks on various topics. This lecture is FREE, however registration is required. Seating is limited. A cash bar and snacks will be available. August 13th | 6:00 pm Christopher Schwarz, Lost Art Press Everyone’s a Chairmaker... Not long ago, most households in Kentucky had the basic tools and skills to build their own furniture. If you raised crops or animals, you needed a few tools to keep things working. Plus you had time during the winter to make a table or a few chairs. Today, a skill like chairmaking seems entirely too difficult to do without special training. Chairs have a lot of crazy angles and difficult joints. But we know that farmers and laborers made them all the time. How? For the last 22 years, furniture maker Christoper Schwarz has studied the furniture made by everyday people – what academics call “vernacular furniture – which is ignored by most museums. By studying older pieces and building new versions of them, Chris has found the clever ways in which farmers and other non-professionals did complex trigonometry and precise joinery using basic tools. In this presentation, Chris will show off a 300-year-old chair made by a farmer and the clues it offers as to how it was built. And then he’ll use those clues to assemble a basic chair on stage. The goal of the presentation: To show you that anyone can be a chairmaker. About Christopher Schwarz: Chris is the publisher and one of the founders of Lost Art Press in Covington, Ky. Since 2007, Lost Art Press has published more than 60 books (all made in the USA) that teach people to work wood with basic hand tools. Born in Missouri, Chris grew up in the Arkansas Ozarks. His parents were homesteaders, which is how Chris got his first taste of hand tool woodworking. After studying journalism in college, Chris began taking classes in furniture making at the University of Kentucky and was hired as an editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine, which was then headquartered in Cincinnati. Today Chris builds furniture for sale from his workshop on Willard Street, teaches woodworking classes all over the world and writes and edits books for Lost Art Press. *** Looking for more free events? Check out the Lecture Series In the Ballroom, August 20th and August 27th. Click the date for more information. ** Please stay home if you are feeling sick.

Event Links

Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/3116387-0

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