Rory Jaros
Illinois
Maker of fine riven “sitting structures”
Branch office: When Rory Jaros first came to Southern Illinois in 1976, he saw people burning walnut trees as firewood. A Chicagoan seeking refuge from “an urban reality that didn’t agree with me,” Jaros says he recognized walnut as “a valued, prized wood and set out to build an enterprise on that undervalued resource.” While supporting himself as a carpenter, he taught himself a disappearing craft, that of making fine riven chairs as the Shakers made them. He started out by making simple stools, and by 1988, he began to call himself a chairmaker.
Split decision: Riven wood is wood that has been split or cleaved from a tree by splitting the log along the grain with wedges. The riving follows the wood grain. Jaros matches or orients the rivings according to the design requirements of each chair; i.e., matching growth rings can be found in each leg in Jaros’ chairs.
Hard-headed: Jaros works only with classic ring porous hardwoods-mostly walnut, also oak, hickory, ash.
Location is everything: Jaros lives near the Shawnee Forest and creates “sitting structures” by harvesting only trees that have fallen-“or it’s a tree that has grown in a fence row and had barbed wire and nails attached to it.”
Call of the wild: Jaros makes seven basic styles of seating structures: the tall or short phone chair, a bar stool, a short-back rocker, a side chair with or without arms, and what he considers his best piece, the Walden rocker. It’s named in honor of Henry David Thoreau, who, like Jaros, lived on the edge of a wooded area.
Growth stock: “I’m striving to build heirlooms,” says the fourth-generation craftsman, who takes three weeks to make each rocker, starting with the finding of the log. After using steam to bend the slats of the backrest to a shape that is comfortable, and harvesting and weaving the seat made of hickory bark, Jaros signs and dates each rocker.
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Chair parts are shaped with drawknives. No nails are used-the chair being assembled by using woods of different degrees of dryness. The greener wood shrinks around the kiln-dried wood, locking chair parts in place.
Cost: From $350 for the smallest chairs to $1,500 for the walnut rocking chair.
Chairmaker-at-large: Jaros sells at artists’ markets in six states from April to October. In this area he will appear at the 57th Street Art Fair in June (call Jaros at 618-893-4639 or write to him at 796 N. County Line Rd., Cobden, Ill. 62920, to learn of other fairs he will be at). His work also can be seen at Southern Sisters in Makanda, Ill., 618-457-8508.