Craftsman’s journey is marked by improv and inspiration
Master woodworker, artist, and educator Drew Langsner has been a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild for 30 years. Ten of those years were devoted to exquisite handcrafting of fine furniture and other functional items — but for the past 20 years, his work has evolved into an exploration of abstract non-functional wood sculptures. The full arc of his celebrated creative career is on display at the Madison County Arts Council Arts Center through July 29 — in an exhibit fittingly titled “This is Not a Chair.” As Langsner explains, “The exhibition shows the transition of the last of my functional pieces, like a series of carved bowls, and how it became less and less functional and morphed into sculpture.”
In the 1960s, Langsner earned an MA in Painting and Sculpture at San Francisco State University, and his undergraduate degree was in anthropology. Raised in Los Angeles, where his father was an art historian and art critic, Langsner was exposed to galleries and museums from an early age — and also realized that it could be difficult to make a living as an artist. He attended college thinking he’d become a professor; however, deciding he’d rather not deal with university faculty politics, he went to work creating adventure playgrounds throughout the Bay Area. Three years later he took off on a backpacking adventure from Western Europe to Nepal — and while in the Swiss Alps, he became intrigued by the work of a traditional cooper who made buckets from wood.
“He generously accepted me as his student for the summer,” recalls Langsner, who had always made things but had no well-developed skills or knowledge about tools and wood. “He was truly a master and I got hooked on woodworking — setting aside the art world for what turned out to be 40 years.” Langsner ran a small woodworking school in Madison County and wrote five books about traditional woodworking — including Country Woodcraft and The Chairmaker’s Workshop. But as he approached the end of his teaching career he became less interested in functional woodworking — which he felt was holding him back creatively — and more interested in its aesthetic and artistic value. Langsner took down a severely damaged tree that had a hollow in it that was about 30 feet long, and colorfully painted it with Rustoleum spray paint.
Photo by Lauren Rutten
“That was fun, and eventually I went to airbrushing, and then got to know a guy with an auto-body shop who did beautiful, high-gloss paint jobs for me on about half-a-dozen pieces. Later I switched to using a paintbrush, and have been doing that ever since.”
Recently he’s been busy salvaging old broken chairs and transforming them into sculptural works of art. “When making each piece, I start with no plan at all; I’m a jazz fan and it’s like jazz improvisation.”
Often a title will come to him as he’s creating a piece — like the one named after a Gershwin standard: “Embraceable You.”
Madison County Arts Council presents Drew Langsner: This is Not a Chair through Saturday, July 29, at the Arts Center, 90 South Main St., Marshall. For more information, call 828-649-1301 or visit madisoncountyarts.com.