Chester Cornett

Chester Cornett (1913–1981) was an American chair-maker and self-taught artist. His life and work have been the subject of monographic treatment both by regional museums and the University of Kentucky Press.

His grandfather, Cal Foutch, taught him the carpentry of chairmaking. Cornett worked in many styles: "pegged and slat-backed armchairs, rockers, and folding chairs from a variety of local woods, weaving seats from hickory bark."[1] This artisanal mastery was becoming an anachronism by the time of Cornett's life, yet the carpenter stubbornly kept at his craft, enduring considerable poverty in consequence.

A unique work in his oeuvre is the "Crucifix" in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum. The stories are contradictory, but the ironical legend is that, with much of the world in turmoil in 1968, Cornett dreamed that eastern Kentucky would soon experience a biblical deluge, and prepared to be a second Noah by making an ark.[2]

Cornett carved a "Crucifix" for the bow of this ark, which was twenty-feet long. The irony is that a tempest did indeed arrive, and the ark was destroyed. For many years, it was thought that the crucifix had survived. In 2014, Kentucky Folk Art Center ("KFAC") presented the first comprehensive exhibition of Cornett's work, "Chester Cornett: Beyond The Narrow Sky", complete with an extensive, illustrated catalogue. During the research, a short super 8 film of the ark shot by Kentucky writer Gurney Norman and provided by Appalshop Archive showed a different crucifix, the original, that must indeed have been destroyed along with the ark. It turns out that Cornett created the crucifix now at the American Folk Art Museum once he had relocated from the mountains to the area around Cincinnati, Ohio.

The 1981 documentary film Hand Carved by media arts center Appalshop features Cornett's chair-building process.[3] The eight-legged, two-in-one rocker created over the course of the film was loaned by Appalshop to KFAC for its 2014 traveling exhibit.[4]

References
  1. Stacy C. Hollander, Brooke Davis Anderson, et al, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum, New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the American Folk Art Museum, 2001, p. 384.
  2. Crown, Carol (2004). Coming Home!: Self-taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-57806-659-9.
  3. https://www.appalshop.org/store/appalshop-films/hand-carved/
  4. "Appalshop Archive". www.appalshoparchive.org. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
  • Jones, Michael Owen. Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity. Lexington, KY: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1989.
  • Swain, Adrian, Chester Cornett: Beyond The Narrow Sky. Morehead, KY: Kentucky Folk Art Center, 2014.
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