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Article: VANISHING WISCONSIN CHAIR MAKER Seat of a sublime craft From logs to finished furniture, one artisan takes wood on a journey
- Article from:
- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI)
- Article date:
- December 7, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Rock Springs -- A well-made Windsor chair is simple, sturdy and
beautiful. Sit for a while in a Windsor, and you can imagine being
perched alongside Benjamin Franklin or George Washington.
David Ogren knows all about Windsor chairs.
He makes them the old-fashioned way, by hand, from logs.
Ogren gathers raw material at local mills and from his property,
35 acres of thick woods and fields west of Baraboo that shelter a
Civil War-era home and an old red barn that doubles as a studio.
He cuts, carves, steams and bends the wood, creating chairs meant
to last several lifetimes -- chairs with prices that range from $475
to $1,600 apiece.
"There is a sense of discovery when you're carving on ...