Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9411080052
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SINKING CREEK LENGTH: Long
When the wood floors in her 1914 Craig County farmhouse became so creaky they got on her nerves, Hodges improvised a new floor design in wood that preserved the floors' integrity - but kept them quiet.
Craftsmanship is about competence, in her view. And that quest for competence is what's driven the 54-year-old artisan to become one of the few women Windsor chair-makers in the country.
A Virginian and a farmer all her life, Hodges grew up with a father ``who was horrified by the 20th century's lack of craftsmanship. He hated to see junk, so he encouraged me to make things myself.''
Her father wasn't a feminist in any sense, she explains. It just seemed practical to him that anyone should know how to cut a board, check the radiator fluid, fix a fence - and do it well.
That philosophy fuels Hodges' own craft, which she learned from master chair-maker Curtis Buchanan at a weeklong workshop in North Carolina five years ago.
Hodges and her husband, Grover ``Buddy'' Mitchell, had been supplementing their sheep-farm operation - he, by selling real estate; she, by crafting wooden bowls and preparing magazine indexes - when Hodges decided to advance their income by advancing her skills.
The Windsor chair appealed to her, she says, because it is elegant yet durable, intricate yet simple.
``There is no more lucid example of less is more than a Windsor chair,'' she says. ``You just go into the back wood lot and jerk the trees out.''
Created in Windsor, England, in the early 1700s, the chairs weren't considered particularly fancy. Made of wet, green wood to accommodate the bending of the arched back, they were lightweight and cheap.
What set them apart then as now is the wet-dry joinery that holds them together, no nails necessary. A dry-wood back spindle, for instance, is socketed into a wet-wood seat blank. The dry spindle soaks up the wetness of the seat, expanding like a sponge and locking the joint permanently in place.
``People discovered these chairs can last up to 200 years, even though they're light and delicate,'' Hodges explains. ``At first rich people didn't have these chairs. ... Now they do.''
The Windsor chair is enjoying a renaissance, thanks to people like Hodges who value the hand-crafting tradition and the customers who appreciate it enough to keep her busy. Her continuous-arm Windsors sell for $610; armless bowbacks, for $400.
For the next two months Hodges is busy filling orders - most of which come via craft shows or word-of-mouth. She's considering learning to craft a writing Windsor, the kind of desk-chair Thomas Jefferson supposedly sat at while penning the Declaration of Independence.
For Hodges, a typical chair takes two weeks to make - in between chasing cows out of the orchard, canning and fighting the proposed Apco power line that would cut through the scenic valley near her house.
Hodges gets almost all her chair supplies from the woods on her 67-acre farm, where she and her husband have lived for eight years. A hickory that was toppled by Hurricane Hugo, but is still living, has already furnished wood for more than 10 chairs.
She uses antique hand tools for the precision work she does in her in-house studio, a dining room she turned into a workshop. ``The old-timers around here are very disappointed I've taken over the dining room. One said to me, `I've eaten many a good meal in that room.' ''
One of the best things about working in a centuries-old tradition is that the process has long been fine-tuned; the mistakes already made. And though any Windsor chair-maker must follow certain procedures in honoring that tradition, each artisan has her own style - based on her own particular tools and her own particular body structure.
``I'm not as strong as some men,'' says Hodges, who is 5-feet-3. ``But it doesn't take a lot of muscle. It takes knowing how you'll use your body.''
Unlike manufactured Windsors - which are precisely the same - each handmade Windsor is unique. ``The eye loves movement, and that chair is alive,'' she says, pointing to the subtle spacing differences between the spindles on a Windsor at her kitchen table.
``A machine can't make a true Windsor with a wet-dry joint,'' she adds. ``At shows people ask me about a Windsor they have in their attic, and the joints have come apart. I don't have to look at it to know it's from a factory. A factory can't make a wet-dry joint.''
In other words, a factory can't manufacture the kind of quality that Hodges's father introduced her to, the kind of competence she strives for in her work today.
It's what elevates all crafts from their manufactured counterparts, she believes.
A true Windsor chair stands for quality and competence - and the craft-making tradition.
``The chair speaks to people of what elegance can be wrought from simplicity,'' she says. ``I just think it's a powerful statement about simplicity and efficiency.
``I mean, what more do you want from a chair? And there it is - just straight from the wood lot.''
by CNB