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Featured Windsor Chairmaker
Elia Bizzarri |
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Photo by Roy Underhill |
Elia Bizzarri's woodworking career began
as sole apprentice to Curtis Buchanan when Elia was only 17. He has also
worked with John Alexander, Drew Langsner, Dave Sawyer, and the carpenters
at Colonial Williamsburg.
Elia Bizzarri is now a professional Windsor
chairmaker, who also handcrafts chairmaking tools and turned parts for
chairmakers. He teaches one-on-one in his shop and classes at schools around
the country, including The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine, The
John C. Campbell Folk School, and Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's
School.
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Roy Underhill 's (of PBS fame) new school
is only ten minutes from Elia's home, and Elia teaches there regularly. In
2010, Elia was featured on two episodes of Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's
Shop on PBS making a Windsor rocking chair. You can view the shows of Elia
building a continuous arm rocking chair and demonstrating his turning skills,
online at
http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/3000/3005.html.
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Working with hand tools from a log, Elia
uses oak and hickory for spindles, crests and arms, maple for legs, stretchers
and arm stumps, and pine and poplar for seats. Split from a log, all parts
except the seat are worked green and then dried, some air dried and some
'super dried' in a kiln. Removed from the kiln, the ends of these 'super
dried' parts are inserted into holes in the wetter air dried parts where
they swell like a sponge, locking the chair together.
Seat blanks come from a local sawmill
are deeply shaped to fit you comfortably for hours. The slim, strong spindles
in the chair's back flex to cradle your back in a warm, strong embrace. Spindles
have minute facets, like a cut diamond, left by a spokeshave. These are the
lightest, most comfortable chairs you have ever slept in.
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Elia Bizzarri handcrafted travishers |
Despite an ever increasing teaching schedule
and thriving tool sales, Elia's passion remains building chairs: chairs are
the real challenge, the sort of work that can be rewarding for a lifetime.
In his words:
"One clear autumn morning, I go to the
woods to find the perfect windfall oak or hickory. I cut the log, split it
up where it fell and haul it home. The wood has hardly missed its leaves
before it finds itself part of a beautiful chair. This is what I love about
my work. The feel of a razor sharp drawknife slicing thick, pungent oak shavings
... watching long ribbons of green maple fly off the lathe to land in a sweet
heap at my feet ... these are the pleasures of my life."
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