Category Archives: Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown

In Praise of Stick Chairs & Cricket Tables

House & Garden magazine in the U.K. has a nice feature on vernacular stick chairs and cricket tables in its current issue. You can read the article here. Tim Bowen of Tim Bowen Antiques is quoted throughout. Tim and Betsan Bowen authored “The Welsh Stick Chair,” a lovely book that we stock. (It is the…

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I Can’t Eat Glory – The John Brown Letters

Between 1995 and 2001, chairmaker John Brown and Drew Langsner carried on extensive correspondence about JB’s classes at Country Workshops. In addition to discussing flights and fees, the two men wrote a lot about how they viewed the craft and the world today. During our research for “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown,”…

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An Introduction to Wales

The following is excerpted from “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown,” by Christopher Williams. It’s the first biography of one of the most influential chairmakers and writers of the 20th century: Welshman John Brown. The book’s title of “Good Work” was an expression John Brown used to describe a noble act or thing….

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Stay at Pantry Fields, Where John Brown Built His Chairs

When Welsh chairmaker John Brown put down roots in Pembrokeshire, Wales, he and his wife, Anne, lived in two railway cars – Fyffes Banana wagons – that had transported fruit around the U.K. up until the 1950s. The railway cars were used as living spaces for many years, until the 1990s when they fell into…

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An Introduction to Stick Chairs

If you or a woodworking friend are wondering what the heck a stick chair is, we’ve made a page that is a quick but complete introduction to the form. It also explains how all our stick chair products relate to the form. So you can better decide if you should go Old School (“Welsh Stick…

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