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Featured Windsor Chairmaker
Peter Galbert |
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Peter Galbert started woodworking for
support while attending the University of Illinois, studying painting and
sculpture. After graduation, he continued to pursue furniture and cabinetry
while living in New York City. He left his position at the Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian in 2001 when he and his wife Sue moved
to a rural area where he could more easily follow his interest in
chairmaking.
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Pete's interest in Windsor technology
and style started with a love of hand tools. Tired of working for long periods
with machines making cabinets, he started looking for a way to make his living
in a quiet, small shop creating useful and beautiful objects from wood. He
rented a small Manhattan shop, about 64 square feet and began to make Windsor
chairs. The advances brought by countless craftsmen over hundreds of years
and the intimacy of the process are the focus in his building, designing
and teaching. Pete's goal is to continue and build upon the tradition of
chairmaking in America.
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"Hardly a day goes by in my shop when
I don't learn something. I like to think of my shop as a laboratory for finding
elegant solutions to the problems posed by chairmaking. To me, chairmaking
is about the interaction of the human form with the possibilities of wood
as a material. I think the potential for exploration is endless. A chair
must be beautiful from 360 degrees, durable, and comfortable, which is a
perpetual challenge to both design and build."
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Pete now makes chairs, teaches chairmaking,
and writes his 'Chair Notes' blog from his timberframe workshop in Bethel
NY. Pete is also presently collaborating on a book with Curtis Buchanan.
Besides teaching in his workshop, Pete has also lectured with David Sawyer
and Curtis Buchanan at Colonial Williamsburg, and taught classes at the Penland
School of Crafts, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and the Peter's Valley
Craft Center. His one on one workshops are open to students of all levels.
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Most recently, Pete's attention has turned
to the development and manufacture of a tool he invented for measuring while
turning on the lathe. Frustrated with the time consuming and confusing array
of calipers normally used to size turnings, Pete made the Galbert Caliper,
which displays the actual size of a turning while it is being cut. The operator
simply stops cutting when the desire diameter is reached and then moves onto
the next diameter without changing tools or resetting a caliper. The Galbert
Caliper is available through his web site.
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