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Andy Chidwick has been a woodcrafter for as long as he can remember. His mother sewed his first shop apron for him when he was six years old and he has never been far from tools and sawdust.
Over the years, his skills improved rapidly and he opened his own business doing custom interior woodwork for high-end residential and commercial projects. As his business grew, however, he was saddened to realize that he had become a manager rather than a craftsman, and no longer worked with wood much. |
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| Changing gears, Andy studied under Hal Taylor, a master rocking chair maker in Virginia, and has now turned his attention completely to preserving the nearly extinct art of the fine hardwood rocking chair. He crafts each chair individually in the shop next to his home, using only the finest of sustainable domestic and exotic hardwoods. Each chair requires two to three weeks of one-on-one attention, with no parts being mass-produced. No two chairs are ever alike as he uncovers the unique, hidden beauty inside each tree.
Andy is an active member of the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers and RockingChairs.net and is invited to show his chairs all over the country at both juried and non-juried shows and exhibitions. For a list of upcoming events where Andy will be displaying his work, click here. He also welcomes visitors to his home to show them his craft. |
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"I sincerely hope my chairs will bring a deep sense of connection between generations of a family, adding increasingly more beauty to each home they grace as the years go by." --Andy Chidwick |
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| Andy grew up in sunny Santa Barbara, California, where he gained a love of music, theater, baseball and working with youth in various capacities. After many years nestled under the giant fir trees of Washington State, Andy now makes his home in the serene Bitterroot Valley of rugged western Montana. He lives with his wife, Sherry, and their two young children, both of whom love to help their daddy in the shop, taking turns wearing the very same apron that his mother made for him so many years ago. | ||||||||||
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