On Jonesborough, Tennessee’s East Main Street, past the courthouse, the antique mart, and the historic little town’s single coffee shop, if you listen closely, you can hear Curtis Buchanan splitting a maple log outside his backyard workshop. Chances are, pieces of that log will become one of the elegant handmade Windsor chairs he turns out there. His creations are displayed in collections at Monticello, the Tennessee State Museum, and the governor’s mansion, and visitors to his shop come from all over—but that’s not why he does it. For Buchanan, it’s all about the
