Our People
Walter Turpening
Founder, Head Chairmaker
Since 1998 I have been making benches, stools and chairs full time. Starting with simple benches custom-fitting the weaver to their loom, things evolved into barstools, spinner’s chairs, dining chairs… Once I felt I was a chairmaker, I made a rocking chair. All in all, 20 or so design variations have been developed. I have taken the advice from a professional woodworker, "As you get older, make lighter things." Since 2017 I have trimmed offerings to more fiber arts benches, stools and chairs.
For nearly 20 years woodworking was a hobby. While working to make a comfortable footstool we took a vacation to the Southern Appalachians and I saw Shaker and rush woven chairs and benches. Returning to Houston, I began teaching myself how to weave curved seat surfaces. My wife Ellen was a weaver and taught me various weaving patterns and provided help with color blending.
In 1997 we decided to leave Houston, Ellen found a clinical dietitian position in Kingsport and we moved in June 1998. I decided to become a chairmaker and set up a small shop. In July of 1998 I did my first national show at the Handweavers Guild of America Convergence in Atlanta, GA.
From 1972 through early 1998 I worked in the oil and gas exploration industry doing geophysical R&D and technical support.
One lesson learned early in the oil and gas years: “retirement can be a bad thing.” I witnessed too many retiring to nothing but travel, golf, fishing… and dying in three to five years. I removed the retirement concept from my attitude. I changed careers.
Peggy Rauch
Weaver, Apprentice Chairmaker
Since I was a child I have worked with various types of fibers from knitting to crocheting, then on to macramé and basket weaving.
Crafting has always been a part of my life. I have witnessed many people working with their hands and making beautiful items. I wanted to participate in creating things that would last.
After many years, I learned to weave on a floor loom and have enjoyed it immensely.
I took Walt's Weave a Bench workshop in October 2020 to make a bench for my floor loom. In August 2021, I joined Walt as an apprentice along with my husband Randy.
Randy Rauch
Craftsman, Apprentice Chairmaker
My Father was a cabinet and furniture maker and a custom gunsmith by trade most of his life. I picked up his love of woodworking and it’s been my primary hobby since I was a boy. Norm Abram of the New Yankee Workshop was influential in me choosing Shaker and Amish pine furniture and cabinetry as my preferred style. I have a basement woodshop and spend as much time as I can down there.
In 2002 when I began doing Revolutionary War re-enactments. Being a person who likes to challenge his abilities, I pursued 2 new hobbies. One was working with cow and buffalo horn. I create horn accouterments from the period like black powder horns, cups, beakers, spoons, combs, and small article boxes. A lot of the items have intricately turned wood bottoms and lids.
My 2nd new hobby was blacksmithing. I bought an inexpensive forge, anvil and basic tools to see what I could do. I enjoyed it very much and still do, hammering hot steel whenever I get the opportunity. In 2017 I joined a local group called the Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Association that operates in the Natural Tunnel State Park in Duffield, Virginia. I was asked to be their blacksmith and have been ever since, doing demonstrations and recreating 18th and 19th century articles that would be called rustic.
After seeing Peggy's Weaver's Bench she had woven in Walt's Weave a Bench workshop in October 2020, we became Apprentices in August 2021.