George Sawyer
George Sawyer was home-schooled in chairmaking. His father, Dave, a pivotal figure in the renaissance of green-wood and Windsor chairmaking in the United States, was building pared-down Windsors in his one-man home shop in Vermont all throughout George’s childhood. Dave, an MIT-trained mechanical engineer who taught himself to build chairs—making hundreds of ladderbacks in the 1970s before switching to Windsors in 1982—was famously generous with his knowledge and became a mentor to scores of aspiring chairmakers.
George, however, was not originally among them. He spent “tons of time” in his father’s shop as a kid working on all sorts of projects—but none were chairs. After studying product design at Rhode Island School of Design and working for an architect on the West Coast and then for the inventor of a wood-fired steam-powered generator, George circled back home and learned the craft of chairs from his father. George’s company, Sawyer Made, has absorbed his father’s example but takes Windsors in a different direction. For George, the appeal of the Windsor is less its craft background than its design parameters and possibilities.
