Shaker Side Chair

Dave Sawyer graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering, but was much happier making things with his hands than sitting behind a desk. He tried his hand at a variety of crafts, and built his first Windsor chair in 1982, the year his son George was born. He found that the technical difficulty and variety creating Windsor chairs kept him fully engaged and challenged him to refine their designs to their most elegant form.

Dave spent the next 30 years perfecting his designs, producing chairs of exceptional quality and beauty. Throughout his career as a chairmaker, Dave taught traditional chairmaking to hundreds of students at his studio in Vermont. Known for his generosity, humility, and his dry sense of humor, he enjoyed sharing his knowledge, techniques, and patterns with other chairmakers. Dave’s unique and wonderful artistry can be found in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and many homes across the country.

George Sawyer grew up amidst the wood shavings in his father’s Windsor chair shop in Woodbury, Vermont. He left home to study Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked for several years in product design, architecture, and building steam engines. After realizing that his father had the right idea all along, George returned to Vermont to train at his father’s side, and formally launched Sawyer Made in 2012. George brings together traditional green woodworking techniques while re-envisioning a future for fine craftsmanship and traditional joinery in modern seating. His work has been on display at MARCH (San Francisco, CA), The Miller’s Thumb (Greensboro, VT), the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (Brattleboro, VT) and the Vermont State House.