Bought at the annual White Elephant Sale at the First Congregational Church in Old Lyme, Connecticut — an old, well-made chair Andrew chose specifically to disrespect. Wrestling with a program-wide argument over what "craft" even means, he took a small gouge to its carefully turned legs and supports, deliberately ruining the joinery some earlier maker had taken real pride in, then painted the whole thing in intentionally ugly milk-paint colors: a mottled red-maroon base with bold yellow spots.
Then he re-caned the seat himself, traditional over-under weave, while watching TV with his mother — who told him she'd caned a chair seat herself while pregnant with him, and that caning had once been an ordinary skill in Canton, Connecticut, something neighbors just knew how to do. Having destroyed the craft in the chair and then genuinely practiced it, Andrew ended up loving the piece. The thesis book's poem: "Over under over under over under / Soapy wet cane / Squeaks when you pull it tight... I had a feeling I had done this before."