The Draketail chair:

This chair came into being when I was invited to submit a work for a regional exhibition at the Virginia Tech University’s Moss Gallery titled “Sitting Pretty: The Chair Re-envisioned.” I did not have a currently existing work to submit, so I submitted a design for consideration and it was selected.

A draketail was a boat I helped build early in my boatbuilding career. It is a Chesapeake Bay deadrise workboat design with a distinctive reverse-rake transom. This unusual design and curving transom fascinated me. When I learned of the upcoming exhibition, I sought a way to incorporate this curve I had wanted to work with for a long time into a sculptural yet functional chair. I used bending jigs and seat forms that I had previously developed for other works, along with the sweeping lines of the draketail boat, and formulated my concept. I built the chair much like the watermen who build their boats by ‘rack of eye’ - a freehand construction method where there is no set of plans and that allows the construction to evolve while building.

The rounded seat base has staving-like construction between the chine and the sheer batten - all mirroring construction of a vessel. The back rest/front leg piece is steam bent and layered mahogany, a wood commonly used in boats due to its beauty and its durability in the marine environment and the curve is made to represent the combing around the cockpit of the boat and the spreading layers represent the overlapping of a lapstrake hull. The bentwood frame is white oak and the staving is cypress, another marine material - sometimes used as planking. These wood components were left in their natural colors. The seat was covered in canvas as would be done to a boat’s deck and washboards. The green color is a nod to the natural shell color of the blue crab, a common symbol of the Chesapeake Bay.

Draketail has been shown at the Moss Gallery and at Artfields in South Carolina, where it earned me a state award. For the the “Sitting Pretty” exhibition booklet, click HERE. For the Artfields awards page click HERE.

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