by Jennie AlexanderEven if you've never used the word “greenwoodworking” you might need to thank Jennie Alexander. Jennie, who died in 2018, was a pioneering author and woodworking teacher who championed greenwoodwork, most notably in Make a Chair From a Tree, first published in 1978. This classic book can be likened to the album The Velvet Underground & Nico, famous for inspiring half its listeners to go out and start a band: few books were more instrumental in inspiring a generation of woodworkers.
Make a Chair From a Tree enabled its readers to fashion a strong and comfortable post-and-rung chair from shaved greenwood using only simple hand tools, giving them an understanding of both greenwood’s properties and the tools involved - along with wisdom and encouragement. The book is an extraordinarily comprehensive guide to greenwood chairmaking, covering every step from splitting and riving parts to making graceful cuts with a drawknife and spokeshave, to brace-and-bit boring for the solid joinery, to hickory-bark seat weaving.
Make a Chair From a Tree’s second edition went out of print in 1999 but has been reissued by Lost Art Press as an “almost entirely new book” in a handsome Third Edition. Jennie worked on the new edition with the assistance of her student Larry Barrett up until her death, reflecting her many insights since the publication of the book’s previous editions. Also assisting were Peter Follansbee (Jennie’s longtime friend and collaborator) and another student, Nathaniel Krause.
This third edition is 184 pages and measures 9″ square - the original trim size of the 1978 edition - but unlike the original edition, it’s in full color. Hardcover and printed on acid-free paper in signatures that are sewn and reinforced with fiber tape. The interior is then wrapped in hardcover boards and cotton cloth. acid-free paper in signatures. Produced and printed in the USA.
Pages: 184
Binding: HC
Publisher: Lost Art Press
