The SKY hanging chair, an American original

SKY® History
he history of the SKY Chair® could have any number of titles: "Hippies Make Good," "Homework Assignment Wins International Award." Or, possibly, "Teenager Discovers Answer to Gravity." Whatever the title, the story remains the same: in 1973 an 18 year-old member of our family created a hanging chair made of canvas, rope and wooden dowels as an assignment at the University of Minnesota Experimental College. As the chair took shape, family members who saw it agreed that it was unlike anything they had ever seen. Then came the test: the sitting, the leaning back, taking a deep breath and experiencing the comfort. The feeling was pure enjoyment.

In 1974, our hanging chair won first prize in an international furniture design competition in Tokyo. In 1976, Bob Anderson, the founder of SKY Chairs, spent his savings on canvas, rope, dowels and a treadle sewing machine. He enjoyed working, loading a truck and hitting the highway bound for Illinois, His first Renaissance Faire. Originally, Bob sewed and sold the chair in the Renaissance castle he designed and built. These huge, multi-storied structures would eventually lead to Bob being crowned "Builder of the Realm" at many Renaissance Faires.

As Bob's family and business grew, he moved both into a school bus. The new mobile digs provided everything he needed: a home, workshop and transportation to the Faires. After several years, however, the nomadic lifesyle no longer suited the family of four children, and he decided to park the workshop at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

SKY Tribe
In time, Bob taught the craft to his brothers and sisters, who then took their skills to the communities where they eventually settled. Tom, the eldest, settled in the Pacific Northwest. Martha, the youngest established a satellite work shop with her husband Eric Williams in Minnesota. Sarah, the next youngest, worked with several apprentices in the Bay Area, including Steve Kowalczyk, a Bay Area crafter.

In the late 1980s, two local Boulder craftspeople, Jay Pettipiece and Jan Burch, apprenticed with Bob and quickly became master chair crafters. Today, they travel to fairs and shows in the Southwest and Midwest. Renaissance men Bobby Knight and Michael Connors, long-time friends of Bob, have been crafting chairs for over a decade, and exclusively travel the Renaissance Faire circuit.

In the early 1990s, Bob's parents, Roger and Dottie, sold SKY Chairs for several seasons and donated all of their profits to Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya.