The ability to make a good chair,
exclusively with hand tools, could be
achieved only after years of practice.
Because those artisans were using their
hands, their muscles, sinews, bones, and
their hard-earned skills, the resulting
chair was an extension of themselves.
That is, in the procedure and labour, they
were confronted by a series of problems,
which they solved as efficiently and
effectively as possible, and the resulting
chair was a physical manifestation of
the quality of shapes, the choices, the
decisions, the compromises, that passed
through the chairmaker's mind and body.
There was a process, a procession of events,
in which the person participated, which
bore fruit in a chair.
One can envisage the sequence of actions
as a kind of dance, or as the dressage
performance by a horse and rider, or as
the Form of Tai Chi.
There is a sensual coordination of bodily
movement.
Eye and limb and mind estimate the degree
of force required to remove the exact
portion of wood that will produce a perfect
result. But the substance of the wood is
never the same, so one must constantly
feel it, read its nature, and make adjustments.
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