Earlywood: 'We're All Frauds'

But I have one thing going for me.

Publisher’s note: It’s Saturday morning, and that means it’s time for Earlywood (wait, isn’t it always time for earlywood?). Every Saturday we publish an excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) an old blog entry. This one is from March 24, 2018. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. We hope you enjoy it.

The book that became “Chairmaker’s Notebook” began as a chat with chairmakers Peter Galbert and Curtis Buchanan. We made a plan to produce a video of Curtis building a chair that would be accompanied by a pamphlet from Peter illustrating the construction details.

In the end, Curtis’s detailed videos ended up here. And Peter’s “pamphlet” became the best book on chairmaking I’ve ever read.

But that’s not why I remember that meeting with Peter and Curtis. Instead, I am continuously struck by something Curtis said to me in that cabin in Berea, Kentuc…