Friday, January 14, 2005 SF Chronicle


"Berkeley: Caner repairs works from around the world"
Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Staff Writer

When Jim Widess moved into a Berkeley duplex many years ago the place was bare except for a chair with a big hole in the seat. Instead of tossing it, he bought a book on caning, got the materials and fixed the lone piece of furniture.

He liked the woven craft so much that he jettisoned his job as an elementary school teacher and decided to do caning full time. "It was the first thing I'd ever done with my hands, and I liked the immediate satisfaction,'' said Widess, who is 59.

The Caning Shop opened for business in 1969 on Berkeley's bustling Gilman Street and, after 35 years, it's still an unusual place.

Many people know it only from a fleeting glance at the sign on a building with an arrow pointing around the corner. Others think of it as the place next to the cool music spot where the young punkers and suburban high schoolers line up in the evening. But those with a torn caned seat or a broken wicker rocker know that Widess' shop is one of the few places where they can get their furniture restored.

"It's an American tradition, a combination of basketry and fine woodworking,'' said Shelly Moore, the manager of the store who began working for Widess 16 years ago when she was in high school. Despite the countless projects she's worked on, she never ceases to be amazed by some of the pieces that customers bring in. "Some of the wicker lamps are so elaborate that when they come in my jaw drops,'' she said.

Although a smattering of places do caning -- in fact, there are so few caners that they don't even have a guild -- no place offers the variety or the breadth of work as Widess' Caning Shop. And few seem to know as much as Widess.

His shop includes a small library on caning, including "The Caner's Handbook'' written by Widess and Bruce Miller, which sells 5,000 copies a year. Engage Widess in a conversation on caning and he'll rattle off a quick history of how caning goes back to the Mayflower, with pilgrims bringing over 17th century chairs from England. He'll also tell you how rattan was imported directly from the Far East in the 18th century and how wicker furniture became popular in the 1840s.

While half of the business is devoted to restoring cane, wicker, rush and Danish furniture, the other half is made up of retail sales and mail order for caning supplies, basketry and, yes, gourds. "Quite a lot of our business is gourds,'' Widess said.

Gourds, members of the squash family that date back to prehistoric times, are used around the world as material for containers and vessels. Some 60 different musical instruments -- including sitars and early banjos -- are made of gourd because of its natural resonance, according to Widess, who has written five books on gourds, including "The Complete Book of Gourd Craft,'' which has sold 100,000 copies.

In addition to cane chairs and rockers, Widess' shop boasts an impressive array of vases, dolls, pigeon whistles and cricket holders - all made of gourd. The bathroom not only has the basics, but also a copy machine, a whale-shaped gourd sconce and a variety of gourd instruments.

Do people play music when they're in the bathroom? Sometimes, Widess answers with a smile.

Eclectic is the way one employee described the store, drawing artists and craftspeople for its wide variety of materials. Crates of gourds -- small and dwarf -- fill one spot of the store while a rack of rattan poles occupies another. "We have hundreds of martial arts customers,'' Widess explains.

"We're kind of a mecca for gourd, caning, fiber, arts, basketry,'' Moore said. The store also offers classes from September through February on gourd carving, seaweed basketry, chair caning and other crafts. The variety is a reflection of Widess' curiosity. "If he's interested, he'll write a book,'' Moore said. "He likes to keep crafts alive.''