Alan Daigre
Alan Daigre is a chair maker and hand tool craftsman living in Readyville, TN, a rural farming community 60 miles southeast of Nashville. Alan developed an appreciation for history and heritage growing up in beautiful Natchez, MS, the oldest city on the Mississippi River. From that time he has held a fascination for the “old ways” and for a time when people used their own hands and a few simple tools to make what was needed to get by.
Alan’s work is often inspired by natural textures and clean, simple lines. He takes pride in creating rope rockers that are not only beautiful but meticulously constructed and unsurpassed in comfort. Materials are selected based on grain patterns and texture and careful attention is given to detail in joinery and finishing work. He incorporates traditional post and rung and mortise and tenon joinery using hand carved pegs resulting in a rocker with strength and integrity. His more traditional chair designs start as a log that is hand split and shaped with a draw knife and spoke shave on a shaving horse in the style made popular by the Shakers over 150 years ago. Every chair and rope rocker is uniquely crafted from a mix of indigenous Tennessee hardwoods, often from his 70-acre property. For each handmade piece, Alan takes painstaking measures in choosing colors, grain patterns and textures so no two items are alike.
Alan is also the co-founder of Appalachian Life Workshops, a traditional handcraft school, located on the site of a 150-year-old homestead on his property. He and fellow craftsman, Jim McGie, teach a variety of old-time woodworking skills such as Spoon Carving, Chair Making, Poplar Bark Baskets, Harvesting and Weaving Hickory Bark and Hewing Dough Bowls. Alan and Jim are passionate about keeping alive the skills, techniques and traditions of the craftsmen who came before them.
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Rope Rocker
Walnut frame
Various woods used in patchwork pattern - mostly maple cherry & walnut
40.5" H x 30" W x 34" D
Please call gallery to purchase.
Cherry Side Chair
cherry
Please call gallery to purchase.
Rope Rocker
Please call gallery to purchase.
