Hand Carved

Work

Date of Production: 1980
Duration: Run time: 0:57:06
Creators: Appalshop, Inc (is producer); Smith, Herb E. (is director)
Contributors: Wright, Jack (is musician); Stamper, Michael (is musician); Sexton, Lee (is musician)
Summary: This film portrait of master chairmaker Chester Cornett, intricate camerawork illustrates the process Cornett uses to chop, whittle, and carve the wood into an exquisite, eight- legged, “two-in-one” rocker designed for the film. Cornett tells the story of his apprenticeship with his grandfather and uncle, and the personal and economic reasons he left the mountains. Chester reveals the precarious life of an artist struggling to survive in a society accustomed to mass production when he states, “I’ve traded a chair many-a-time for groceries.”

Description

A film by Herb E. Smith and Elizabeth Barret with Anthony Slone, Robert Cooper

Music by Jack Wright, Michael Stamper, Lee Sexton

Thanks to Jim and Pam Benedict, Linden and Lena Foutch, Urban Appalachian Council, Teresa Heintzman WHAS-TV, Diane Williams Smart, Chester's neighborhood friends

Supported by grants from Appalshop Film Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), Kentucky Arts Commission, Appalachian Community Development Association

Related Collections

Chester Cornett Collection, c.1950-1981

Hand Carved materials, c.1981

Hand Carved

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