Randy Ogle, chairmaker and musician

“Mom at all times mentioned I used to be good sufficient to get into
chairmaking however not good sufficient to get out.” — Randy Ogle

That is an excerpt from Andrew D. Glenn’s ebook Backwoods Chairmakers: In Search of the Appalachian Ladderback Chairmaker, out there from Misplaced Artwork Press. SEVIER COUNTY, TENNESSEE – Earlier than talking with Randy Ogle, I guessed that he arrange store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, as a result of excessive visitors, spendthrift vacationers and the individuals who had second properties within the space. It appeared a perfect location for a chairmaker, however it may not match the definition of “backwoods chairmaker.” The city of Gatlinburg, although nature-themed, is something however backwoods. These sitting in visitors beneath the neon lights, only a few miles away from Randy’s chair store, can be hardpressed to name this a rural, pure house. After a couple of minutes on the telephone with Randy, I spotted that what I knew of Gatlinburg was so small as to be virtually inconsequential. Randy has household roots there that return to earlier than the Civil Battle, when Gatlinburg was named “White Oak Flats.” His grandfather, Isaac, began the “enterprise,” although it wasn’t a enterprise as such. There was no showroom or developed workshop, it was extra like a shed out again the place he labored. Randy and his father, Wade, continued the household efforts, making chairs and customized furnishings to order. This store, within the Glades space of city, was began by Wade about 1965. It was right here earlier than massive Gatlinburg got here to be. The city got here to the chair store, not the opposite approach round.

Randy invited me to go to. He has an exquisite tendency to be optimistic and hopeful when discussing difficult topics. And he has a penchant for self-deprecation relating to his accomplishments. Don’t let that idiot you. There’s knowledge in his phrases, delivered with equal elements humor and perception. As we mentioned his household, his chairs and the way he reached this level in life, he mentioned I wanted to grasp one piece of knowledge to understand all of it. The chairs and customized furnishings pointed to a greater life. “One of many overriding, commonest elements of dwelling in rural Appalachia is: You don’t even comprehend it, however you’re exceedingly poor. Abject, virtually poverty. Whenever you begin with a base of nothing, something you do looks like an accomplishment.”

The problem, he mentioned, begins with the land and farming the panorama, with its steep hills and myriad challenges.

“The folks impressed me as a result of they have been in a position to just about flourish beneath these hostile situations,” he mentioned. “My granddad was a farmer. Everyone was a farmer. You farmed to eat. However typically he’d have greater than he wanted, and he’d promote eggs. Someone would possibly need 4 chairs and he’d commerce them for a pig. He would possibly hear anyone say there was an upturn in what he referred to as ‘the tan bark’ value. He lower tan bark for a yr. However he was nonetheless a farmer. He needed to farm to dwell.”

I interrupted. “Tan bark?”

“They referred to as it tan bark,” he mentioned. “You’d lower chestnut oak timber, in some areas it was hemlock. However you’d lower chestnut oak timber and strip the bark off of them, hauled the bark to the railroad in Pigeon Forge the place the leather-based tanneries purchased it … They used it to tan leather-based.”

Randy’s grandfather Isaac made his first chair at 16 and discovered the commerce from his aunt Mary McCarter Ownby. Randy suspects there have been extra chairmakers within the Ownby household line however doesn’t have the family tree data to indicate it. Regardless, Mary taught Isaac to make chairs. Isaac skilled profound modifications throughout his life in Appalachia. And his woodworking modified, too.

“He constructed completed, progressive furnishings similar to anyone did,” Randy mentioned. “However he truly noticed it go from the utterly rustic, handmade stuff to lacquered and delivered in Michigan; it was a fairly large distinction. He skilled much more modifications than I ever did.”

Isaac went from making shaved, rougher homebound chairs to lathemade. Maple was ultimate: robust but workable, plentiful and closed grain, which made scrubbing it doable.

Grandfather bought a request for a walnut chair each occasionally. Used to constructing maple chairs. “White” is related to clear. In the event you dwell in rural Tennessee, filth was an issue, cleansing was an issue, (it) was a part of your massive effort. They’ d take sand out of the creek and make a brush out of brush (tiny hardwood twigs of hazelnut or rhododendron, lashed to a deal with) to clean the ground with. To get it bleached out, cleaned up. (So with a) white chair, you can wash it down with sand and it was fairly clear. They used maple as a result of it labored good, was robust, and it appeared clear and neat.

Now the primary one who ever ordered walnut chairs, Grandpa mentioned, he went out and lower down a giant walnut tree and cut up it and simply cut up the sapwood off and made it out of the white sapwood. The black wooden was left some other place. He simply thought, “Who would need that black chair?”

A pair different makers have been recognized for his or her unfinished furnishings and the flexibility to scrub it. Some, resembling Chester Cornett in his earlier years, or the makers of Cannon County or Mark Newberry working right this moment, count on the purchaser so as to add the end. Or they charged additional to complete the piece. Years in the past, including a protecting end was unusual. The early chairs that Isaac made didn’t obtain a end, and Randy mentioned the chairs have been fortunate in the event that they acquired a paint job later in life.

Someone else, anyone requested him for a set of chairs with an oil end on it. A part of the Appalachian tradition is that you simply’re proud and fairly cussed. He [the maker] simply grinned and nodded at him and mentioned, “I didn’t know what sort of oil to get. I went and acquired a quart of motor oil.”

I’d wish to noticed what they appeared like a yr later.

Randy’s store is located on a quiet street, now marketed because the “Arts and Crafts Loop,” simply off a principal throughway into Gatlinburg. It’s a mixed store and showroom, with the store house taking about two-thirds of the constructing. Randy grew up working within the store together with his mother and father, serving to his father Wade make chairs and fill orders, whereas his mom, June, labored the showroom.

Wade took the small household enterprise and grew it. The Gatlinburg space was increasing, and Wade noticed the chances with chairmaking and customized furnishings. Randy mentioned he admired his father’s means to progress ahead, each in enterprise and life. Wade went via unbelievable modifications throughout his time, from outhouses to plumbing, strolling in all places to vehicles, and mule groups to equipment. A lot of these modifications bracketed Wade’s time within the U.S. Military.

Randy defined how he had decisions the earlier generations didn’t, but selected to stay within the enterprise, whereas Isaac and Wade’s pursuit of higher lives led them into chairs.

If I had been born in 1900, I’d have farmed, adopted a mule, lower tan bark, no matter it was to squeak by. By the point I used to be born in ’53, Dad had a automobile and a public works job, the best way they put it. So I by no means needed to rely on whether or not the hens layed or to not eat breakfast. There was one thing there. So I used to be extra prosperous and will pursue what I wished to as a substitute of barely squeaking by, subsistence dwelling. We have been form of the primary technology round right here that might deviate a lot from the sample. Dad was actually the primary one. Partly as a result of the time in historical past, and likewise as a result of so many individuals left right here to enter the Military in World Battle II.

In the event you present anyone a greater approach, they’re awfully more likely to take it. I don’t know why I didn’t, however I didn’t. I’m about as good as a traditional hillbilly. Earlier than you may make a choice to stick with one thing previous, you need to be prosperous sufficient to afford to do it. My technology was prosperous sufficient to decide on what we wished to do.

There’s a trace of disappointment intertwined with satisfaction as we focus on his time within the store. This comes from Randy’s proclivity for introspection and his means, at 70 years previous, to look again on the potentialities of life. He was not predestined for a lifetime of chairmaking. He “appeared round” as a younger man (he thinks everybody does one thing related) earlier than returning to the store to work alongside his mother and father.

I believe it was an absence of selection after I was younger. This was profitable sufficient, you simply maintain doing it, however you’re at all times searching for one thing higher. At some point you simply notice, “I don’t need nothing higher.” That often comes later in your life.

However yeah, for years, I used to be working right here with Dad, and we have been making a living, making furnishings and all the things … making a multitude. But when I bought supplied for a very good job, I’d a … however I’d in all probability wind up come again. However that’s the youth. I don’t learn about you. After I was a child, even in my 20s, I don’t know if I wasn’t mature sufficient or there was too many issues to consider, however I didn’t actually choose what I wished to be. You at all times pursuing one thing that appears higher than what you had. Did you ever discover that in your individual life?

Ultimately, you get bored with chasing stuff, and also you’re alright the place you’re at so that you keep there. And with me, it simply so occurs that I’m right here, and I can’t think about doing anything. If I didn’t do that for a dwelling, I’ d have me a store out behind the home to piddle with. That or fish.

Randy is aware of there are different choices. He can drive three miles and be within the middle of a vacationer city crammed with jobs and the flexibility to make a very good dwelling. There are alternatives to enhance one’s lot in life. It was asking an excessive amount of of chairmaking to count on a continued monetary development. Chairmaking has its limitations.

I really feel a few of that weight as Randy describes why he hasn’t inspired his daughters to proceed within the household enterprise. They know the work, having began within the store as soon as they have been sufficiently old to relaxation on a packing blanket whereas Randy labored. They grew up within the store, sanding elements or ending furnishings at some point, then serving to out within the showroom the following. No matter work wanted performed, they did it. However:

There’s no cash in it. I didn’t advise my daughters to take the store over, and that’s why. They’d have been as completely satisfied as I’m, and I think about myself blessed. However you’re committing them to 60-70 hour weeks for perhaps $20,000-$25,000 a yr, and it’s onerous to make it on that now. That wasn’t too massive a deal in 1980; 1990 began to get tight. Now I believe I’d qualify at no cost lunches if I went again to high school.

The Ogle Chair Store doesn’t have a single chair type. There’s a Queen Anne aspect chair sitting within the showroom, together with turned post-and-rung chairs. Randy stuffed buyer requests of all kinds over his profession. However the chair they take advantage of, and the one Isaac began with again within the Twenties, is the standard post-and-rung aspect chair. Isaac shaved it, Randy now turns it. We targeted on the ladderback through the go to. Randy and his buddy (and part-time store assist) Pete Alcott diligently wove seats whereas we mentioned the making course of.

I attempted to remain out of the best way. (A fourth individual was within the store through the go to, Mr. Charles, who performed bluegrass and nation on the guitar as Randy and Pete wove seagrass. The store, as soon as Randy semi-retired, has grow to be a neighborhood hangout. Pete considers the store a model of the early common retailer. There’s every day music, together with a Friday-night session that pulls a rotating group of musicians.)

We begin discussing chair particulars. Randy supposes that the patterns he makes use of right this moment have been created someday after the Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park got here in, proper round 1940. The park attracted guests, and the city took off.

“Every store had what we referred to as a turning sample, only a ring placement and form, specialised to the client,” he mentioned. “Previous to public gross sales, there have been little or no ornamentation performed on something round right here. It was utilitary, and that was it.

“I do know this in all probability isn’t going to impress lots of people, however through the use of these kinds, that stick sample, I could make a chair right this moment that matches one my grandfather made in 1958.”

I requested about probably the most vital particulars in chairmaking. I ask every maker this query, and most reply with the significance of dry rungs. Ignore it and the chair fails. So it piqued my curiosity when Randy took the query in a unique path. Correctly seasoned rungs are implied in his response.

I don’t know that there’s a vital element. For me, the vital a part of making a chair is a sturdiness as an finish consequence. The aesthetics is a really shut second place. In the event you take the chairmaking within the sequence that I’ve been taught or arrived [at], I’ve modified it a bit bit from what Grandpa performed and Dad performed, modified a few of my boring angles, modified a few of my sizes. However in the event you take that into consideration, in the event you do every step correctly, there’s not one step anymore or a lot much less necessary than every other one. So there’s nobody single element above look, and it’s a secondary element, so sturdiness and look roll collectively in my purpose.

You can also make an unpleasant chair and make one of the best chair within the nation. Aesthetics are simply aesthetics. You can also make a foul, ugly chair, splinters on it, and it’ll nonetheless final 100 years. All of it dovetails collectively. The aesthetics are necessary. I simply merely just like the seems to be of a well-made, well-finished piece. Offers you a nice feeling simply to the touch it if it’s effectively sanded. I don’t like flashy, loud, shiny finishes in addition to a smooth, satiny, clean end. There’s only a pleasure in touching or feeling or utilizing a well-made, well-finished piece. And I can’t separate that from … I can’t separate that in my thoughts to say it’s extra necessary than the standard. If the nice portion of the expertise just isn’t there, then folks received’t ever expertise the standard as a result of they received’t sit in it. So you’ll be able to’t actually separate the 2, if that is sensible.

The method of creating the chair has modified little since Isaac began making them. The wooden has modified. Walnut is way and away the preferred selection with Randy’s prospects. Gentle-colored woods, resembling maples and ashes, are seeing an uptick in reputation proper now, however Randy doesn’t count on that to carry. It’s a fad and can quickly fall away.

One change is in how Randy will get materials. He doesn’t lower the timber and cut up the elements. He buys 2-in.-thick slabs, which air-dry outdoors his store beneath a protecting to maintain the solar and rain away. However probably the most noticeable change is in seating. Early Ogle household chairs got here with a corn-shuck seat. Randy can twist and weave that seat, however can’t justify the time it takes to place one in. So he makes use of seagrass and the identical fundamental seat sample. Nonetheless pure and the identical Ogle sample, with out the extreme time and vitality.

Randy likes the looks of the seagrass seat.

It’s my seat of selection now. I don’t assume there’s a greater seat than a [corn] shuck seat. I merely can’t put them in quick sufficient to promote them. Most different seats are usually not practically as sturdy. Within the case of Shaker tape, and it’s a killer seat, it’s even a lovely seat, however it’s a fabric webbing. They have a tendency to stretch and the seat “saddles out” fairly a bit. If the seat saddles an excessive amount of the rungs contained in the seat begin to put strain in your behind, and it may get uncomfortable.

Randy’s course of for making chairs is way the identical as his predecessors. It begins with milling and materials prep. Randy considers power and sturdiness vital, however solely to the extent {that a} aspect chair wants it.

“We name a submit a 2×2. It’ll truly costume right down to about 1-3/4-in. cylinder,” Randy mentioned. “I take advantage of … Grandpa at all times did, Dad at all times did …3/4-in. tenon. That’s the half that drills into the opposite half. One motive for the 1-3/4-in. is that you simply’ve bought two 3/4-in. holes entering into. You’re slicing loads of that out. Now, you can go down to five/8-in. tenons and actually not discover a giant distinction. Go right down to 1/2-in. tenons, and also you begin to fear about folks leaning again on it. The variety of rungs in a chair makes it so much stronger or weaker. Most of mine has three rungs on all sides and two in the back and front. That provides you … Whenever you rely the again slats, the again slats add loads of power to the again and none to the entrance.”

I observe that up with a query on pinning the slats. Loads of chairmakers do it, some even make it a design characteristic. It’s a solution to tie the elements above the seat collectively and a approach so as to add extra power to your complete piece. I don’t discover any pins on Randy’s practically accomplished chairs and ask whether or not he’ll finally add them.

He burdened that with this design, the power is with the rungs. The slats maintain tight because the posts shrink across the slats.

Nicely, in the event you use greenwood, they grip down till the pin is pointless. The pin, or a nail, often solely holds a chair till the glue dries or the posts begins to shrink.

What I used to be about to say, in the event you’ve bought 10 dowels in your chair, that offers you sufficient to begin being a good-quality chair. A 12-round chair or a 13-round chair is marginally higher however, like we mentioned a minute in the past, a chair that may maintain 3,000 kilos when folks weigh 300, what does it matter? You may put 4 rounds within the entrance of a chair, and it don’t add a lot power.

Whenever you have a look at a chair, with me leaning again, all of your load is correct right here on these tenons [pointing to the side rungs entering the back posts]. It’s totally on the again. You’ve bought six holding him up, with 3/4-in. tenons, it’s a reasonably robust chair. Six complete. Now in the event you put 4 rounds in it, you’ll begin to discover a bit little bit of looseness after a number of years. However you can put 9 on all sides and it’d simply appear like a ladder. It wouldn’t be including rather more sturdiness.

Randy’s tenon-cutting method was additionally distinctive. It’s a variation on approaches that different chairmakers use. He cuts the rungs to size earlier than taking them to his tenon cutter, which is mounted on the lathe, full with a stand on the mattress to carry the rungs parallel to the cutter. A wood plug within the cutter stops the tenon on the right size, roughly 1-in. lengthy. The plug has a pin within the middle of it to mark the middle of the tenon. After slicing all of the tenons, Randy takes the rungs again to the lathe and turns the taper.

Subsequent is sanding. Randy thinks that is the place amateurs get it fallacious. Amateurs drastically overestimate the significance of sanding. Further sanding (going via a number of grits, from coarse sandpaper to finer ones) just isn’t definitely worth the effort and time. Randy sands his chairs with #80 grit, or some close to equal.

To my shock, the scratches have been solely noticeable with an in depth examination (however who else goes to lie on the ground to look at the rung scratches?). The chairs have a pleasant, smooth look as soon as Randy provides his oil combination.

Randy’s given loads of thought to pricing and gross sales. He is aware of his neighborhood, what he can cost for a chair, and the kind of life this occupation affords.

Randy truck farmed earlier in life, following the paths of Wade and Isaac, rising his meals to dwell whereas the chair earnings lined bills. His every day routine for these years was: work at chairs and furnishings till 5 p.m., come house for dinner, then work the farm till darkish. And whereas it was loads of work, Randy was no outlier; his neighbors labored simply as onerous as he did. It’s with that lived expertise that he approaches the advertising and gross sales aspect of the enterprise. Whenever you work that tough on your cash you don’t sometimes spend it frivolously.

I could also be … effectively, I do know I’m uneducated, and I’m fairly naive. The very first thing, in my view, you are able to do to stimulate gross sales is your pricing. Nicely, it’s so low now that there’s not rather more give. You would possibly double it or triple it and it wouldn’t have an effect on your gross sales [income] however you wouldn’t have very many shoppers.

The largest factor is promotion. And also you want a extra seen, accessible location. Once more, I can’t see spending that form of cash with out a constructive return, fairly fast.

He is aware of his choices if he desires extra gross sales, however he’s not at this level in his profession. He may promote extra, that’s one choice. He is aware of the place the vacationers are, they usually’re not coming again down his street a lot, so he thought-about relocating nearer to the primary throughways into Gatlinburg. However these enterprise bills would wish to pay for themselves shortly, and Randy doesn’t assume they’re justified proper now. So he stays put and retains his bills as little as doable. As we spoke in regards to the enterprise aspect of issues, Randy crystallized his present strategy to advertising:

“Possibly it’s as a result of I simply don’t give a shit,” he mentioned.

As with different makers, Randy struggled to get good cash for the work that goes into the chairs and customized furnishings. The making is the straightforward half. It’s the promoting that’s troublesome. He distrusts a heavy-handed gross sales strategy. Both the client desires it or not; he isn’t going to drive them into the sale. His philosophy: “Make it ok the place folks will purchase it on their very own.”

He is aware of the nuances of pricing. The charges he prices are a stability between what he must survive and what the client can pay. The hope is that the 2 are aligned. If not (as with the corn-husk weaving), then there’s a determination to make about doing that work.

“With the intention to maintain the store open, I’ve lastly arrived at a store price of $35 an hour labor price plus supplies,” he mentioned. “And that averages round $50 hour. Now, on some stuff you would possibly make $75 an hour for 4 hours as soon as a month. Then once more, you would possibly make $10 an hour weaving seats for 3 days. With that work you’ll be able to’t hardly cost $50 an hour … You simply should eat it.”

At these costs, he stays as busy as he desires to be:

• Aspect chair, no arms, walnut or cherry – $320
• Aspect chair with arms – $400
• Aspect chair, maple – $290

The problem with pricing is with buyer expectations. There are lower-priced (mass-produced) furnishings choices throughout for patrons, so the worth tags within the Ogle showroom shock lots of them. They have no idea the work and energy that goes into making the chair.

Actually, the worth of chairs purchased from a person craftsman on the “exalted” value … My rocking chairs common round $1,000. That displays … you may not imagine this … folks seems to be at a $1,000 chair and assume you’re getting wealthy. That displays wherever from a $200-$250 money funding (supplies, provides and overhead) and about 40 hours work. So you are taking $200 off of a thousand … that’s $800 every week. That’s first rate cash, however it’s not wealthy man’s wages. If they need a woven seat, then you definately stretch that to 6 days so your cash’s rather less.

Randy’s working lower than he did years in the past and is nearing full retirement. I ask in regards to the store as soon as he’s performed. What would he inform somebody who wished to observe in his path?

“I’d actually do all I may do to assist them in the event that they determined it, however I wouldn’t encourage anyone,” he mentioned. “Now if anyone sees this as a gold mine, then I’ll make it simple sufficient on them to do it.” However issues have modified over his life within the store. The hours wanted to construct are simply as lengthy, however the gross sales are more durable to return by. The earnings wanted to maintain a few folks simply just isn’t there proper now.

“Again within the ’60s, in the event you owned a store, you’d have two or three folks working for you and be thought-about ‘semi-successful,’” he mentioned. “Dad constructed a home and had it paid for in 12 years out of this little store. That was in 1965. However in 2020 …”

We dropped by Randy’s store mid-morning on the final day of our go to to return a group of his household’s footage. Our complete household is within the automobile, although solely I am going in as a result of our youngsters have lengthy grown bored with listening to chair tales.

I hear Randy’s guitar earlier than I enter the store. Randy and a buddy are having a session. I’m interrupting. They play one other and quiz my information of the songwriter. I really feel that I ought to comprehend it, however this lays my ignorance naked. I don’t even know sufficient nation music to kind a guess. The reply: Hank Williams (and I make a vow to at all times guess Hank Williams or Loretta Lynn any further). They don’t maintain it towards me. I promise to cease again via the following time I’m close to. Apparently I’ve taken too lengthy. My daughter seems within the store, to not be a part of us, however to drag my arm towards the open doorway.

She has had sufficient chair visits and has hopes to achieve a swimming pool by early afternoon. We drive east, towards North Carolina.

My subsequent probability to mull over the go to was after we checked into an equal-parts charming and sketchy downtown lodge. I remained awake to course of the Ogle Chair Store go to. I plan to satisfy one other maker within the morning, so this was my probability to jot down down last impressions earlier than they’re mentally washed away.

Trying via my notes left me with an impression of Randy’s contentment. Content material with work—the chairs, the store and farming. Content material with life and the music he shares with mates and guests alike.

I believe via our dialog about being a generational store and whether or not there’s additional strain to remain within the household enterprise or within the continuation of it with the following technology. Randy didn’t really feel the strain from his father—or if he did, he didn’t share it. And he put no such expectation on his daughters. The early technology of Ogles used furnishings and chairs to make a greater life for themselves. Randy just isn’t positive the store choice is greatest for his youngsters. He appeared round earlier than coming again and dedicating himself to the store. However his daughters have taken a unique path. Randy is content material with that. Probably relieved.

So the store might shut sometime quickly, each time Randy decides to totally swap out the turning instruments for his guitar and fishing pole.

However “shut” isn’t the suitable phrase. It’s too easy, usually carrying a discouraging tone. This chair store modified the trajectory of the Ogle household whereas producing stunning furnishings. To “shut” is hardly ample to explain what’s occurred right here.

I think about the store doorways will stay open with Randy simply as welcoming, even after he retires. The hum of chairmaking might be changed by bluegrass chords and storytelling. It might grow to be a neighborhood spot. A spot for dialog and music.

In the event you cease by sometime mid-song and Randy quizzes you, please guess Hank Williams on my account.