Windsor Chairs
I am currently making bench built Windsor chairs, having taken
a very early retirement from Eastman Kodak. I trained with Michael Dunbar
of The Windsor Institute,
who literally wrote the book on the subject (Making Windsor Chairs
with Michael Dunbar, ISBN 0-918804-21-3, recently out of print).
My first class was in 1996, and it was the first piece of furniture I
finished that someone who didn't know my hobbies wouldn't guess I had
made. The downside was that my willingness to spend non-trivial amounts
of money on woodworking tools also went up because I realised I would eventually
find a use for them! I already had some tools but acquired most of the rest
in the next 3 years.
I am a menber of Trinity Communion Church, a
new plant of the Northeast Diocese
of the International Communion of Charismatic
Episcopal Churches. The buzzword is "convergence", we are a reblending
of 3 streams that have historically separated, sacramental, evangelical,
and charismatic. Since we have suddenly needed a number of things that
a charismatic-friendly evangelical church does not, and I am the person
who knows about costuming and a lot of fiber arts, I have had an opportunity
to exercise a number of interests.
- On making cassocks and vestments
- Mass linens and liturgical embroidery
- General church supply houses
I was reading rec.woodworking on Usenet before the world wide
web existed, but my interest was definitely towards hand tools. It is
extremely easy to bleed all over a project by acidentally cutting yourself
with a really sharp tool, but hand tools don't have the ease of amputation
that a fraction of a second with power tools do. In the winter of 1995-1996
a mailing list called oldtools was established to discuss non-electrically
powered tools more extensively than seemed acceptable in rec.ww. The list
has grown to a large discussion list hosted by Cornell, and a number of
participants have extensive websites of information. To dive in, go to the
archives,
read the FAQ, or start
at the Galoot's
Progress for a lighthearted description of what you are about to get
yourself into and a metalist of useful websites. One very nice thing about
the galoot community is an appreciation for good writing, while we have
a lot of acronyms and abbreviations, we also recognise a well told story.
In 1995 I learned to spin from the spring issue of Spin-Off
magazine. The entire issue was devoted to drop spindles (cheap!) and
to someone who knits it looked like a logical next step and didn't require
investing in a wheel (expensive!) that then might turn out to be something
I didn't like. My friends who were used to seeing me always knitting had
a bad case of "does not compute" (why don't you just buy yarn??!!) so
I decided I could use some new friends for whom this made sense. I ended
up in the Barony of Thescorre
which is the Rochester NY chapter of the SCA.
For someone with a wide range of interests the SCA is really nice because
it puts a focus on a wide range of hobbies. Nearly everything that exists
today had an analog in period (roughly 600-1600 AD western Europe and contact
cultures) and you can follow whatever looks interesting to you. Even if
no one else in the local group is interested in exactly the same thing,
the folks do recognise the coolness of what you are doing. If I walk through
a mall drop spinning the adults carefully don't stare and the kids stare
or ask me what I am doing. In the SCA no one stares, although several may
inquire if I know Lady So-and-so who is also into fiber arts. The only comparable
public experience was at a MWTCA tool meet held at Hancock Shaker Village,
after making the first round of dealers I pulled out the spindle and surfaced
a number of fiberholic wives of toolnuts.
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Personal Interests