Sawtooth School gives female chairmakers a seat at the table

An exhibition featuring the work of 15 contemporary women artists specializing in furniture making is soon coming to a close in Winston-Salem. 

Seating Assignment: Women in Contemporary Chairmaking and Craft Education began last year at nearby Salem College. Curator Becky Juliette-Duex was teaching seat weaving techniques there when she came across the school’s Sutton Initiative for Design Education Chair Library, where students sit in and study roughly 50 historic chairs.

But one thing was missing, says Sawtooth School for Visual Art’s Director of Operations Rebecca Silberman.

"Like many things in our history, the folks represented are majority male," says Silberman. "There’s less than a handful of female makers in that collection of chairs. And we wanted to expand the conversation about who is in chairmaking and who is in design, and have the students see themselves reflected in another body of work."

The work of the 15 female artists in the exhibition is expansive. In a large room with the Sawtooth’s hallmark jagged-windowed ceilings filling the space with light, chairs of all shapes, sizes and materials face inward like the start of a social gathering.

Some are conceptual art pieces like "Exploded Chair" by Joyce Lin: legs, seat and back rungs disassembled but encased in a form-fitting acrylic, exposing the process of furniture making.

A few feet away sits "Self Care" by Katie Bister, designed to be comfortable for her own body: a petite chair with a shallow scoop in the dark walnut seat for ease of movement, short maple legs and back slats of tightly woven broom corn.

And "Red Diamond" by Annie Evelyn: a cushioned chair, glistening red, with a long sweeping train or cape that flows from the seat to the ground, transforming the sitter into something like a piece of jewelry.

Josie Vogel, director of wood programs, says these chairmakers are bringing something more to the craft.

"When you as a woman (are) doing something that you don’t always see other women doing, it can be a little intimidating," she says. "And all of the women here, they make an effort to make space for more women in the craft, and bring more women into it so that we can all experience the love of chairmaking."

The Sawtooth exhibition closes on May 11. There will be a guided public tour with curator Becky Juliette-Duex on Thursday, May 9.