Speaking of chairs…

A while ago I posed about my obsession with bowls, crocks, and recipies that go well in bowls. I am absolutely loving the set of bowls I recently purchased from Crate & Barrel. However, this will not be another rambling about how we love bowls.

Just today a thought popped into my head while searching some of the bizarre places that my blog is linked. One particular blog is about the Boggs family name, which consequently is my mother’s family, and it links every time I write something about the Boggs family. Maybe I get brownie points for how many times I mention the Boggs family. Who knows.

However, there is a distant relative of mine that is quite the craftsman. He makes chairs as a living. Now, how many people do you know that actually own chairs from a professional craftsman. No, the guy behind the big machine at the Pottery Barn factory who only screws in the legs of a chair that will look like 10 million other chairs is NOT what I’m talking about.

Brian Boggs (and I realize now that I should have made this a Great Find Friday) is my mother’s cousin who is the chairmaker. He makes chairs professionaly by hand. They are custom Kentucky build and feel fantastic for a wooden chair. A lot of people may think that wood chairs, unless they are in your kitchen are uncomfortable, but who doesn’t love a wooden rocking chair? Put that in a nursery or in your living room to just sit in and read a book, and viola! It might just put you to sleep.

Brian is constantly featured in woodworking magazines, home furniture magazines, and is Berea, Kentucky’s best kept secret. If you’ve never travelled to Berea, or much less Kentucky, you should stop there. This is a town that is so wonderfully preserved in Early American culture that you really feel at home. They have a fantastic hotel there and the entire town hires students from Berea College, in order for these students to work to earn their education. As far as I know, to applicants, Berea College is free and the students must work in the town. However, what a way to earn an education. This “quaint” little town in Kentucky is a great place to spend a day and enjoy the break you’ll have from capitalism, big boxed stores, and carbon copies of everything one could buy at a furniture store.

And if you’re there, stop by the chair studio, and say hello to Brian. He has been making chairs literally my entire life and though I don’t get to see him at all, maybe twice in my life, and he only has a faint recognition of who I actually am, he held a very dear spot in my grandmother’s heart, and so I am very proud to call him my relative.

Chairs and bowls aside, I think it is great when you have a person, or multiple people in your family of whome you can be proud of. I am incredibly proud of all the people in my family, close or extended, because they all come up with something unique to their character. So of them have yet to decide, but it’s so fun when I can say, Oh yeah, my cousing designed my business logo or Talk to my mom about that she’s an interior designer. Plus, it makes me proud of myself to know that my mother-in-law says, ask my daughter-in-law about that because she’s an event planner and can give you some really good ideas.

I think everyone needs to be proud of who they are and where they come from. I know I am, hense the blog.