CHAIRS


Peter's two most recognized chairs


Walton NE Side Chair
Shown with a koa seat



Lizanne Arm Chair 

WALTON NE SIDE CHAIR

The Walton NE side chair was selected by a panel at the Taunton Press to be included in a special issue of Fine Woodworking Magazine, called “Fine Woodworking Furniture”. The jurors recieved 375 entries to select from for this issue  which is dedicated to contemporary design and was published in September of 2008

The Taunton Press will be releasing a book version of Fine Woodworking’s Contemporary Design Issue entitled “Design Book Eight” in March of 2009. This issue showcases recent contemporary designs and the Walton NE Side Chair has been selected for this publication.

The Walton NE Side Chair was juried into the Maine Wood 2008 Exhibition at the Messler Gallery in Rockport from an impressive field of recent work by Maine furniture builders. The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship received 140 entries from 67 Maine artists for this exhibition. Jurors Garrett Hack and Beth Ireland selected 24 finalists for the show which ran from November 29, 2007 thru to March 14, 2008.
At the reception, Peter was presented with the  Outstanding Craftsmanship Award for this chair.

“The side chair arrived this afternoon in perfect condition.  We both admired it, the texture and color, and of course sat on  it...best lower back support of any chair I have ever sat on in my whole life.  You are indeed a master craftsman.”

Mike and Sharon Holsinger
Florida
CHAIR LIST

WALTON NE SIDE CHAIR
Award winning at juried exhibitions and juried into prominent fine furniture publications

WALTON NE 
SIDE AND ARM CHAIR
HIGHLANDER 
CHAIR
ANTOINE 
ARMED AND UNARMED CHAIR
JAMILA STUDIO CHAIR
KINSHASA CHAIR
BORA KITI
CALMA STUDIO CHAIR
This chair was juried into the
Maine Wood 2010 Exhibition
at the Messler Gallery


SUIL TOGALACH CHAIR



Peter began his furniture building career intrigued with building small cabinets. He wanted to stray from the traditional shapes and design cabinets with curved sides, flowing tops, as well as, mixing in panels of stained glass in the place of wood panels. The latter combining his wood working skills with his ability to design and work with stained glass. His interest in creating “never seen before cabinets” has been replaced with an incredible love for designing and building chairs and stools. Peter still enjoys building custom desks, tables, beds, and cabinets out of his small shop in Cornville, Maine but his passion is creating “one of a kind” wood chairs that are not only beautiful to look at but comfortable to sit on. Each piece of every chair is shaped by hand from rough sawn hardwood boards by this award winning artist. He finds that he connects strongly with each chair as the wood seat is created. Starting with rough 8/4 boards, Peter selects the most attractive board to build the seat. Believing the seat is the centerpiece of each chair, the selected board has to have an interesting grain pattern and a rich color. The boards for every seat are matched, glued, and planed down to 7/4. It is at this point that the flat seat blank is initially edge shaped and taken to his grinding booth. This is where Peter grinds and sands each seat, shaping and matching each side by eye and touch. As wood chips and dust fly, the grain pattern changes as he works to the desired depth. It is at this moment that time seems to stand still and Peter is totally connected to the raw material he is working on. Shaped by hand and eye to a 220 grit finish, the seat is then ready for assembly.

Peter is an artist who gives a customer the opportunity to truly individualize the chair or stool that has been commissioned. The customer can enjoy choosing from a large variety of wood species and select what wood the functional art piece will be built out of. Wood can be mixed and matched to suit each customer’s need and desire. To view a selection of wood readily available for a commissioned chair or stool please visit www.hearnehardwoods.com, or www.highlandhardwoods.com. to make your choice.  When selecting hardwood for an order it is important to know that most of Peter’s hand-shaped seats start from 8/4 rough sawn lumber. After visiting these sites you will realize that there is quite a selection of hardwood species to choose from for one of Peter’s seats.  Due to the fact that some of the components of each chair are worked up from 16/4 there is less to choose from when it comes to the chair itself.  Peter finds that a majority of his chairs are worked up from Black Walnut, Cherry, or Hard Maple with a different species for the seat of the chair.

When building a chair for a customer, Peter makes a point of hand selecting the best hardwood boards out of the bins at the lumber yards. This guarantees that if he is building a set, all the chairs will relate to one another. There may be times though when Peter has to purchase a board (such as Koa) without inspecting it first. In this case, the wood will still be of a high grade but grain pattern and color will not necessarily be able to be matched. Also, prices of his chairs may vary depending on the wood selected. Following is an example of this:

WALTON NE SIDE CHAIR
black walnut
with black walnut seat
$1,750
WALTON NE SIDE CHAIR
black walnut
with koa seat
$2,350