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San Francisco Chronicle ~ Wednesday, August 5, 1992
SITTING PRETTY ~ Robert Erickson's Museum Quality Chairs
by Bronwen Hruska
... Robert Erickson's van Muyden chair, an interpretation of a three-legged Norwegian design, has achieved the rank of an objet d'art, residing in the permanent collections of both the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Yale Art Gallery.
His trademark, a curve in the lower portion of the seat back, keeps posture good and makes the seat comfortable. Many other furniture makers have since adopted the feature, he says.
Proud owners of Erickson furniture include poet Gary Snyder, economist Milton Friedman, radio personality Garrison Keillor and Nebraska Governor Bob Kerry.
“It's a very nice example of the movement away from production to man-made furniture," says Martha Drexler Lynn, assistant curator of decorative arts at the Los Angeles County Museum. “Erickson prizes simple forms and natural finishes. He does very straight-ahead designs and good, solid work.”
Erickson will exhibit his chairs, which cost $1,500 to $3,500, this weekend at the Pacific States Crafts Fair at Fort Mason. The annual event, the largest juried crafts fair on the West Coast, features handmade items such as ceramic bowls, contemporary quilts and pewter tableware.
The charm of Erickson's furniture is in the meticulous hand-crafted feeling his pieces evoke; their appeal lies in his intimate knowledge of the material.
Tucked away in the forest in the Sierra Foothills where Erickson lives with his wife, Liese Greensfelder, and their 13-year-old son, Tor, he has chosen to make his life among the ponderosa pines, incense cedar, black oak and California madrone, many of which are hundreds of years old.
Living in the woods is crucial to what he does, he says. He chooses and often fells trees himself, milling and then drying the wood for two years before he can even begin to build from it.
During the shaping and sanding process, he’s covered in a thin film of fine shavings from whatever wood he’s using. The scents are as distinctive as the color and texture of the wood
“I always know what kind of chairs he’s building by the smell,” says Greensfelder, who seems to enjoy the red elm scent lingering in the air.
Living In The Forest
Pointing to his farm-style plank-top kitchen table, he explains the philosophy of his craft.
“This is black oak. I know right where this tree came from. The table is the forest. I live in the forest. It allows me to feel really connected to the furniture itself.”
Unfortunately, when clients are buying such expensive chairs, they order them in traditional woods, such as walnut and cherry. Erickson says they don’t realize that a lot of local woods rival the traditional ones.
“Americans are ignorant of woods in general,” says Erickson. “I try to educate clients in what’s involved in getting fine-grained woods.”
He says local old-growth Douglas fir, sugar pines, California madrones, California oaks and California black walnut are some of the finest woods around. (He refers to trees at least 150 years old as old-growth.) To ensure that these trees are around for future generations to enjoy, Erickson takes an active role in forestry management.
By monitoring logging practices in his community, he says he knows which trees he can use without disturbing the environment or wildlife population too much.
Trying out new, untraditional woods and designs is what keeps Erickson interested. Over the years he has let himself experiment, having some fun playing with form, which is how his famous chair took shape.
After several hundred chairs, he says, he made a few discoveries that are now also Erickson trademarks. “If there’s a slight tension – a slight torque – in the pieces when I put a chair together, there’s a certain liveliness and spring to it. Instead of just being square, the chair comes to you instead of you conforming to the chair.”
Erickson takes pains to custom fit each chair to its owner. “I learned over the years there is no formula based on height or weight. There’s a real psychological element to being comfortable in a chair. Milton Friedman, for example, told me he wanted to be very upright. Another person of the same size may have different proportions and angles. They might be more comfortable another way. You have to tailor the chair as you would a suit.”
Janet Brantigan, a physical therapist in Omaha, Neb., and her husband, John, an orthopedic surgeon, own eight Erickson chairs – two rockers and six dining chairs. “We’ve never had more comfortable chairs,” says Janet. “Bob measures the length of the extremities and the torso and fits it to you. They’re extremely comfortable because of that. When I sit in my husband’s rocking chair I know it’s wrong. When I sit in mine, it feels right.”
In addition to the lower back curve, the seat of the chair is shaped to conform to your thighs. Depending on the style of chair, the arms bend or dip or, in some cases, have no middle at all.
Musical Approach
Although Erickson was mostly self-taught in the specifics of woodworking, he acknowledges his early experience as vastly influential.
At 23, the Nebraska-born boy landed in Northern California and found himself working with furniture make Ed Stiles and jazz drummer and designer-builder Roger Somers.
Stiles gave him an appreciation of form, while Somers’ musical approach to architecture and design gave Erickson a philosophical appreciation of woodworking.
“Somers would always tell me, ‘If you think you can do it, don’t do it. If you think it’s impossible, that’s the way to go,’” he says.
Furniture-making, Erickson has proven throughout his full career, is a way of thinking about the world. “I like to loosen people’s minds to new options.”
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