By Susan Marquez, Magnolia Tribune
(Photo from harkinschairs.com)
Mississippi has some great storytellers. Greg Harkins is one of them.
With his signature white beard and a twinkle in his eye, he’s been mistaken for Santa Claus more than once, and says he’s been mistaken for worse.
Building toys is not his thing. Instead, Greg builds chairs and other furniture. But he is known for his rocking chairs.
A native of Jackson, Greg’s family has lived in central Mississippi for six generations. A good Irish Catholic, Greg attended St. Joseph Catholic School and then headed to Mississippi State back in the early 1970s to study psychology. In between graduation and grad school, he spent time doing odd jobs for a local chair maker.
“I looked up and three and a half years had gone by! I had missed grad school!”
Deciding it was time to get a practical job, Greg moved back to Jackson to work as a cook. That lasted only a year before he began missing the freedom of the chairmaker’s shop.
“I like being free to work as long as I want to work, and to play as long as I want to play.”
That was the beginning of a lifelong pattern for Greg.
He became a chairmaker’s apprentice and really learned the skills associated with the trade that dates back to the 1840s.
“I learned from a man named Tommy Bell, who learned from the Blalocks, who learned from a Mr. Spruill, who learned from a Mr. Rouse who came here from Germany.”
The men he apprenticed with were already in their 80s and 90s when Greg began learning the craft in the mid-1970s. He now passes his skills to future chairmakers through classes he teaches in his workshop.
Chair making came naturally to Greg, who remembered the stories told on his grandmother’s front porch.
“She must have had eight to ten chairs across her porch, and she had a story about each one – where the trees were from, what they did with the rest of the tree, that kind of thing. I heard those stories so many times they became a part of me.”
In 1978, Greg founded Harkins Woodworks in Vaughn, Mississippi. He gained fame in 1980 when he presented then-President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan with a rocking chair at the Neshoba County Fair.
Over the years, he has gifted chairs to six presidents as well as to Pope John Paul II. He is a Cultural Ambassador for the State of Mississippi, embodying the state’s heritage and hospitality.
Perhaps his most famous chair is the 10-foot chair he made for the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson
Each piece of furniture Greg makes is dated and signed, and he guarantees each piece for life. He begins by handpicking the trees and mills the lumber to make the chair parts. Each part is turned by hand, then the chairs are assembled and finishes are applied. His shrink-fitted technique has been passed down through centuries of furniture makers, and the result is durable, high-quality furniture.
It typically takes 25 hours to complete a chair, which includes hand-weaving the back and seat.
Greg is a Fellow Member of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi where he has served on the Board of Directors. He is also a member of the American Craft Council and the Louisiana Craft Council.
He has been selected to receive the 2026 Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in Traditional Craft. The award will be presented at a ceremony at The Westin in downtown Jackson at 6 p.m. on February 12.