A writing (desk) review...

Being back here in Maine and assisting in the workshops has been quite fun. I've gotten to see old teachers and friends, meet new ones, and be back in the cradle of my woodworking creativity. But being around all this woodworking and not partaking has given me the itch, so, naturally, I'm starting a new project. A spec piece of some sorts, but not a large-scale piece. I want to start to push myself in a new aesthetic direction, though I'm not sure what direction that is at the moment. I've been workshopping ideas and starting to bring those design juices to a boil all weekend, but, as Peter Korn reminded over the weekend, I cannot rush the creative process. As I've said, it's difficult for me, and I have many years more experience building than I do designing, so I need to be patient. Again, the mantra of self-patience. Funny how you can tell others something time and time again and often forget to apply it for yourself. Ah well.

Before we look forward and journey through that process together, let's look back at my last piece, a stand up writing desk. From a design perspective, it's nothing groundbreaking. It combines elements of Eastern furniture with Federal influences, and ends up in a good place, I think. The customer was happy, and that was the end goal. From a technical standpoint, which may interest you a bit more, it was loads of fun. It has straight lines, shaped parts, inlays, stringing, and elements of cabinetry. I thoroughly enjoyed building this piece. 

I think over the next few posts we'll discuss some elements that were employed here and how I do them, which may or may not be the way you do them. I use stringing tools, router planes, and hide glue on a regular basis; the latter two being some of the least employed, most versatile tools a furniture maker has. Now go make something for your father, and call it a late father's day present. Doesn't matter what it is, just make something.

Joinery all wrapped up

As the week carried on, I had the pleasure of getting to know the folks I was working with a bit more. Some were just getting into woodworking, or just beginning to dive into it with passion. I love working with people like this because I remember how enthralled I was not all that long ago when I began. I remember the frustration that my dovetail didn't look like the teacher's; the excitement when I made one that did; the elation when I put that first coat of shellac on my first ever project. I still feel that way each time I finish a piece—that's perhaps my favorite part of it all. I love the building and I respect the designing, but I like tasting the cake to make sure that it's good, if you catch my drift.

For the latter half of the week, we focused of the mechanized versions of the joints we had already covered in the bench room. Mortises and half-laps with routers, tenons and dados on the table saw, and, of course, finger joints in place of dovetails. The undistorted truth is that these joints, and this style of woodworking, will give you the same results with less practice than hand work will, and I believe that's why so many people rely on them. It's a "let's get it done and drink a beer over it" mentality, but it's not my mentality. There's something precious in the process, even the processes that challenge me. 

I have quite a difficult relationship with design. Some folks, as James Krenov has said, have an innate understanding of proportion and line, but struggle in the exercise of bringing that thought into reality. I am quite the opposite. Design for me is a mental exercise of mathematics and the manipulation of rules, rather than an intuitive thing. But the great ones of any art are not those who follow the rules, but those who bend and ultimately break them. Woodworking teaches one patience with self above all else, and perhaps in time and with practice I can do something noteworthy. Until then, I'll keep learning. If there is ever a woodworker who tells you they've mastered everything, don't listen to a word they say. 

Happy trails to all the friends I've made this week! Keep doing it as long until it ceases to bring you joy, and then, stop.

Just Joinery This Week

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As David put it, it's not a class about only joinery, but rather a class about doing joinery justice. As such, we have Just Joinery, which is the class I'm assisting David Upfill-Brown, known affectionately by many names, but my personal go to is "The Mad Scientist". Take a look at his website and see his highly sculptural, functional furniture and you'll know why I call him that. 

But this class is not about David. It's about joinery, and two days in we're in full swing. We started in the bench room learning to cut our traditional joints by hand. Half-laps and mortise and tenons the first day. Today, Tuesday, we moved forward to bridles and dovetails. It's been full steam ahead, no doubt, but the students have been excited and hard-working, which goes a long way toward smooth sailing. They key to this craft is perseverance, not luck, not a knack. It takes long days of patience with self and with the material your using, understanding that it has subtleties just the same as you do. Your saw my want to pull to the right, or the wood may want to pull your saw that way. You have to learn to understand these nuances, which takes time and experience. 

This is why I love hand work so much. You form a bond with the material; understand it on a deep and honest level because you are forced to interact with it's intricacies. A table saw will never give you tear out. The helical heads which we are lucky enough to have in the jointers at CFC almost eliminate the need to understand grain direction. If I worked in such a way where the only machines I used were a bandsaw, jointer, thicknesser, and shaper (with helical heads), I could build a great many styles of furniture successfully with virtually no need to understand the medium with which I worked. I could force the wood to do things it doesn't necessarily want to do. And many folks do. But I don't feel satisfied in that kind of work. That's not what I set out to accomplish.

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Being that this is a joinery class and not a hand tool class, we will, of course, cover machine cut joinery. Over the remaining days we will begin to work our way into the machine room to expose the students to all the methods we can to give them the best understanding of joinery as a whole as it exists in the modern world. But starting with hand tools is a necessary step because machines have evolved out of the processes of hand cut joinery. To more completely understand how a table saw or a bandsaw cuts, you need to understand why the teeth do what they do, which is related to the sharpening of handsaws. And the more deeply you understand something, the less chance for abuse their is, limiting the possibility of accidents.

My Workspace

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Honesty is the best policy, I've been told. But it's true. It's true with relationships, both personal and professional. And it's true in this blog. This is a place to share information, honestly, so that we all might learn a thing or two. As such, a fair assessment of my creative space is in order.

It's not pretty. It's not where I want to end up. But it's where I am, and I've been creatively successful there. I have dreams of a bigger, brighter, more beautiful place to work and spend my days. But all buildings need a foundation to be built before any aesthetic work begins. And that is the stage of life in which I currently reside.

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I am, by some definitions, a "hand-tool woodworker." Meaning that, in my daily work, I utilize hand tools for almost all of my work beyond the milling process. Consequently, I don't need many of the large machines that others rely so heavily on—machines such as slot mortisers and shapers. These machines, while wonderfully efficient and a perfectly legitimate way to work, promote a lifestyle that does not sit well with me for two main reasons. The first is to say that all things need to be done as quickly as possible. The end is the goal, not the process. But the furniture itself is not why I became a furniture maker; rather, the process of making the furniture, from design to finish, is what I enjoy most. There is a satisfaction at the culmination of my work, not just in the thing having been conquered. 

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The second reason is that advertisers often promote the machines to non-professionals who then feel they need the best toys to keep up with the "pros." But do they? Brian Boggs started making chairs with just a chisel and spokeshave. In fact, the story is that he didn't even have a chisel, so he put an edge on a slotted screw-driver. The only chair of his I've ever sat in was incomparably the most comfortable chair I've ever put my butt in. 

Mostly, I just enjoy the way I work. I enjoy the romance of the quiet days of planing and sweetening curves with the spokeshave. The sounds of the mallet hitting the chisel and the smell of scraped oak. The glimmer pine has once the ol' #4 has purified its surface. I simply like life more in those moments than when the motors are humming.

I wanted to give you all a glimpse into my working life so that you can recognize that you don't need the perfect space to start working wood. You simply need to find something that fits your situation. This fit mine. My three major milling machines—the bandsaw, the jointer, and the thickness planer—are all within 8 feet of each other. My table saw outfeed table holds my chop saw and its extension beds and doubles as a finishing table. My dust collection is a portable Rikon collector and an air filtration system from Jet. Before I could afford those, it was a dust mask and an open garage door.

We'll discuss all these things in more depth in due time, but for now, go get a chisel and spokeshave and make a chair already, would ya?

The Creative Life

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When does one find the time to start a new blog? Or, more appropriately, is there ever a good time? But having done the blogs and bits of writing I've done before, I'll say that while it takes a good bit of effort, it is a good outlet to wrap your mind around something. It's work, yes, but I've built my life around my work, and my work around my life. 

I am a craftsman. A furniture maker, first and foremost. It's my first true love, and it's what I get paid to do. But I also create through any number of other mediums. I'm a musician, an illustrator, a writer, a carpenter, and a cook. All those things I love to fill my time with. And all those things influence my woodwork. I have sketches of a piece in waiting based on a poem by Longfellow. I have another sketch of a piece based on a tree that looked like something Wharton Esherick might dream up. I take cues from other makers and let it influence my cooking, my music, and what I think about when I ride my bike through the woods. People have been creating since we first were able to record our thoughts, and, perhaps, all those people made the world a little bit more beautiful through their work.

This blog is, or will be, about the Creative Life. It will be about how all those things influence my life as a maker of things, and I hope to be able to bring new influences into the lives of those who read it. To be able to see things that they might otherwise not have seen, and hopefully be able to converse with them about the knowledge we have collectively. Some may have read my last blog, "Just A Woodshop," while I was in school at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship. I find it appropriate to start this blog while I'm back at the school as an assistant for the next 9 weeks. 

Hopefully you'll join me and we can discuss together the endless musings of woodworking, and the Creative Life.