Happy or contented with work?
The textures in work are so diverse man merely glimpses them in snatches, little more than flashes but even those flashes far exceed an image and even a film. A mouth moves from smiling satisfaction to abrupt tensity and stock-still shock in split seconds parted by steps of transition in fifty convoluted shapes and each stage reflects the tensions between these two extremes of emotion.
Texture is atmospheric, deeply felt and superficial and we penetrate these invitations of sight to whatever depth we want to. Touching a wood surface and looking at what people call grain is the most superficial level.
My eyes catch moments of texture between workers at the bench and faces opposing one another in conversation. The texture of delicate hands counter the heavy muscle on another bench and both texturise the atmosphere as I sit and glean as if garnering the shapes that show how work is accomplished by the lightweights and the heavyweights. Here I write with my mind a record of how work is accomplished in people learning to work with their bodies that give texture no machine ever can.
I like that man is not a machine until he works with a machine. He isolates himself in spheres so precious when the shape is formed and the kerf cut by a saw extended by his arm. This entry into the material is the extension of who he is; he’s powered to engage the work by this texture of handwork and so the machine opposes this spectacular isolation of textured life.
My students have left and then today the shop seemed silent but for my workbench noises as I make my new chair. Here it’s made as a prototype in redwood pine from eastern Europe. It’s simple in look as yet and needs some more shaping ti get the full appearance I want. 26 mortise and tenons, some of which are compound—it’s a very unique and unusual detail I chose to build into this chair for training. It takes me a day to build this chair and when we film the new one in oak it will look expensive. Someone said IKEA makes one from pine and I say I don’t care too much as mine are made by my hands to last about 150 years and theirs perhaps only a few.
Many woodworkers are intimidated by chair making and that includes professional furniture makers. It’s also true that the methods making them by hand are very rewarding once you climb over the doubts. Remember the fear of failure is often unrealistic.
Anyway, this is a fairly conventional chair but it’s the steps we take that build skills and knowledge that create the dynamic we need for chairmaking to become part of you. It starts with a chair like this one made from solid wood with the chair joint.
Today was restful to me as I worked alone after the class last week. People came and went as I leave the workshop door open for visitors to see a textured way of living. A lady asked my quietly, “Are you happy?” I am not sure why she asked, but I said that I wouldn’t feel to describe myself that way. She seemed surprised and I think that my answer missed the mark in her book. I think she did perhaps have some picture in her mind of what I would feel in the stillness of my workshop but it didn’t really fit what I felt. I tried for a minute to think how I could express to her what it’s like to draw a picture on a block of wood and then make the drawing become something like a chair with just a pair of hands. The words defied such textures so I left it at that and smiled at my shoulder lines and arches and the way the chair felt when I sat in it and then as she turned for the door I said, “How about contented?”
thanks for a look into the future
Yes. Contented. And I hope for satisfied as well–but that may be a few years in the future.
Thanks for this Paul. I suppose chair making does seem like seriously grown-up furniture making. Not only in the way you interact with a chair in a more direct way than most furniture, but also that any shortcomings in design or execution quickly get found out. Makes me glad we’ve got a good teacher!
Sorry Paul, but it does you no credit to constantly run down the IKEA product. Yes your chair is bound to be far superior to an IKEA chair, but IKEA sell solid wood chairs for as little as £14. The markets for your type of chair and an IKEA chair are quite different. I’m sure that someone who can only afford £14 for a chair is not expecting to buy a family heirloom, but is buying a product that can last a minimum of 10 years (their guarantee period) and most probably much longer as long as a little bit of care is taken with it.
You may or may not be right with my commenting on IKEA. The point being that an IKEA chair carries the guarantee makes no difference as most guarantees have nothing to do with the guarantee of longevity but that most people have such low expectation they rarely take advantage of the guarantee, rarely keep the receipt essential to recovery of cost and just flat can’t be bothered taking a £14 chair back. Many guarantees are actually based on these simple facts and that’s the reason manufacturers actually make it. I generally make the comment because most people can relate to a comparison between two such extremes that’s all. I actually think they do a pretty good job compared to most such companies even if their ethos is questionable on the whole.
I think the point isn’t entirely to run down ikea as it is to point out that the comparison of this kind of work versus Ikea is erroneous in the first place. To say “You can get a chair like that at Ikea for 14 pounds” is missing the forest for the trees. Of course you can’t get a solid wood chair made with your own hands at Ikea for 14 pounds. Conversely, you can’t get a discount chair in your home shop. This is how I mistakenly stumbled into woodworking. Thinking I could save money by making my own furniture. If its just furniture you want, and you want it now, and you want it cheap, go shopping. Its value will only be utilitarian, however. And a life motivated only by utility seems fairly parched, by my observation.
That’s sad though, isn’t it David? Our throw away society has taken the work away from the craftsman and delivered it to machines. Not knocking your comment, just sayin’…
Hey Paul.
Beautiful chair.
In reference to the first picture, how would one (not you :)) make sure that s/he is sawing straight? Put a second line on the bottom and then check that line as well while sawing?
Yes, you can mark both sides. I was sawing away from my line, leaving enough for my scrub plane to hog off and then finishing with the smoothing plane. It’s good exercise for us older men and very rewarding. I am not sure how I would feel making a set of six one after the other. I am sure I would use the bandsaw most likely, but that’s not really the point.
It’s actually very nice in pine too I think. It makes it lighter. Other woods such as poplar would be quite nice too.
There is another method you demonstrated in your video making winding sticks (episode 1). That method of dropping the heel of the saw while sawing, turning the workpiece around and do the same again etc. brought my sawing accuracy to a level I never expected to be. So I would recommend it warmly to Mariano and everyone who wants to cut more precisely. I use that method all the time sawing 2 millimeters away from my line.
Some planing afterwards and my workpiece is ready for the next step.
Watch the video about making winding sticks episode one on the woodworking masterclasses. The scene where Paul divided the wood into two winding sticks.
So thank you Paul for sharing your knowledge!
I think my point is that the craftsman product and the ‘IKEA’ product should be able to sit comfortably alongside each other in today’s society, and should not be seen as conflicting. I have a rocking chair I made myself. It is beautiful but took a long time and a lot of effort and I could not possibly populate my house with such crafted products, so I also have chairs which are mass-produced. In days of yore craftsmen were paid a pittance and often bonded, virtually slaves. I’m sure no one would want a return to those days, so let’s celebrate craftsmanship as a demonstration of what people can still achieve by means of their own sweat and talent and dedication.
This chair in oak is going to look beautiful! What is your plan, Paul? Will it be a new masterclass project at some point? Or part of a course?
I was on one of your courses in November last year and it was a great experience. The other day I had my younger grandchildren (aged 5 and 7) working on my bench with saw and spokeshave to make two wooden shields. My two eldest grandsons (13 and 16) have been making a dovetail box. Hopefully with projects like this they will get the feel for hand-tool working and get hooked for life!
We have the sliding dovetailed bench or stool coming up next I think and we also have the frame saw too, but these are short series projects and then we will have the chair, which is also not too long a project too. So, get sharpening up and get some wood in. Meanwhile I am thinking through the steps and stages for filming. That’s more challenging than making a chair out of my head as I did in this case. I decided to make the chair without measuring first, so it just came out of my head as I went, just to see how it turned out. Here is the result.
Mr Sellers,
That’s a good looking chair, I particularly like the ovoid headrest, I am constantly trying to avoid straight lines in my furniture, after all anyone can make a square box. By the way your a better man than me… I find hand work very therapeutic, I don’t however, feel the same about ripping. I must confess running to the bandsaw for long rips.
Nice chair, nice design. A little bit “beefy”, perhaps. This one would stand a horse! Will you slim down the one of oak?
I did say that it would be more refined as I go and now that I have finished it it looks good.
I couldn’t agree more – I have a bunch of ikea stuff in my apartment and lots of things I’ve made. They all play well together and I’m not precious about the ikea stuff getting hammered by my young children. I plan to transition over time to well made products but for now it works very well for me and I don’t see any conflict between the two worlds because they are serving different purposes.
Great looking chair.
I don’t know that I’ve been either happy or contented in any work I’ve done. I liked the Army: we knew what we were about and we knew how to get it done. (Not being shot at was a plus.) In a later career, I stopped several nursing homes from being closed for malfeasance. Statistically, nearly 10% of frail elderly being forced to move from a familiar place die of what was called “relocation trauma”. So, I might have saved a couple dozen lives and hundreds of jobs. Maybe the best work I’ve ever done, but it took a lot out of my life, maybe years from my life. I certainly wasn’t happy or content.
I took an online college course when I retired, and the professor maintained that in the 70,000 year span of Homo Sapiens ruling this planet, the hunter gatherers had the best standard of living. They worked half days by our standards, had healthier exercise and diets, and they really knew each other well, because their lives depended on the people under the next sheltering tree. They used their minds incessantly, because they followed seasons and terrain for different foodstuffs. They didn’t have maps, maintenance, Ikea or Harbor Freight, but knew how to live with their heads and their hands. Lots of leisure time around the fire, when they exchanged stories, experience, knowledge, jokes, and probably lied outrageously.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Hardcover – February 10, 2015, by Yuval Noah Harari (Author) (see Amazon.com, maybe US$18)
The course isn’t being offered currently, but I’ll buy the book. The problem is that “Hunter-Gatherer” was not a following encouraged by our high school career counselors.
I’d like to be either happy or contented. 2×4’s into a solid chair. Maybe so.