I’m a chair maker and educator. I make Windsor and Ladderback chairs on commission in my one-person shop in Charlotte, Vermont. I offer traditional and contemporary designs, and custom work.

My work falls under the umbrella of green woodworking, having much more in common with carving a spoon or making a pitch fork than with making other types of furniture. I start at the log yard, where I look for veneer quality logs. Once they are back at the shop I split the logs up with wedges into blanks that will be turned on the lathe or shaped on the shaving horse with the drawknife. I have a couple logs sawn up into slabs each year, which after drying for many months, are used for ladderback rear legs. Curved parts - like Windsor back bows and ladder back rear legs - are bent with steam. 

My handmade chairs are assembled with hide glue and finished in a variety of ways including milk paint, oil paint, and shellac. 

I teach a number of woodworking classes every year in my shop, and at schools across the country, covering a range of chairmaking techniques. Classes in my shop are limited to 4 - 6 students. 

In addition teaching my own designs, I teach Curtis Buchanan’s democratic chair, and Jeanie Alexander’s two-slat ladderback - both hand tool green woodworking classes - where students split their parts out of a log on the first day. I also teach several Brian Boggs ladderback designs - which start with dry sawn material and incorporate machine processes, but still have an emphasis on hand shaping parts. Workshops range from 5 to 8 days, and everyone leaves with an assembled chair. 

Material selection, moisture content and movement, bending and drying wood, using the drawknife and spoke shave, and learning to build skills with your hands and eyes, are central to every class. 

In each class I aim to impart an understanding that wood is not a homogenous material, but a bundle of long wood fibers with each tree species having different properties. Understanding that idea allows for a simple and efficient way of woodworking.