The Elastic Chair

My reproduction of the ‘fully elastic’ armchair

One of my areas of research is the chair maker, Samuel Gragg. In 1808 he patented a bentwood chair that he called: “Elastic.” Although thanks to the patent office being burned down later in the century, it is a fair assumption that his was the first, and certainly the most deserving piece of patented furniture in the new republic.

An exhibition of this work that I created and curated in 2003 “The Incredible Elastic Chairs of Samuel Gragg” can be found here, thanks to the Chipstone Foundation:

http://www.chipstone.org/content.php/17/Exhibition-Archive

Ship’s Wheel

I made this ship’s wheel for a two part article I wrote for WoodenBoat magazine. (Note:screws all hidden under stringing)

Making old furniture

The top half of this cupboard is the oldest known piece of case furniture from Cambridge, Mass. I made the base riffing off of other, slightly later objects in other collections, and extrapolating the details from the top half. The color difference is due to the flash in a dark room.