I know that every workshop I teach is different because those who come are diversely different, but there is of course the obvious common thread, which is the interest in woodworking and working wood.
A contrast for most people we call professional woodworkers is the reality that many working making furniture today use MDF and veneers. They do this because they can create the illusion of fancifulness without remaining within the constraints wood places on them. I have seen desks that sold for $250,000 made from wood, MDF and veneer. In our workshops we use only real wood because real wood is what woodworking is all about.
Working wood is critical to all of as we go through the course. It’s as we work its substance that we begin to understand its limits and work within them. It’s a difficult acknowledgement to accept restraints, but at the same time it’s the most freeing thing to recognise that limitation and work within it. The engineered boards substituting for wood have never replaced the wondrous woods we cannot create but only create with.
This is Simon, he came with his son Sam as a special treat for both of them. I love Dads that do this, don’t you?
I was glad for those who came and gave their all to make the projects. You know, at the beginning of class, I always say that it’s not the projects that are at all important but the process of mastering skill. The projects are only the vehicle if you will; they are the means by or through which we establish skill that can, once mastered, last for a lifetime as they have for me.
Gareth is here with his dad. he took a few days away from studies to work wood. He is in his last year training as a dentist.
The photographs here are most always serious. New woodworkers take it seriously and they go through a process to become woodworkers gradually as they take courses with me and others who help them on the journey to becoming. To be honest, I admire them. They take steps to change from unknowing to knowing.
This is John working with Mike who is a GP. John loves people and loves working with them. he is always helping others and so he has fit in well with everyone he has met. Soon he leaves (on Tuesday) to establish himself in his homeland of Patagonia where his family is. He will start woodworking there and who knows what this will lead to for him.
Dewi is from the Island we know in English as Anglesey but in the native Welsh is called Ynys Môn. One of the loveliest places you can visit. Dewi came with his son Gareth and again they both had a unique three days together sharing their learning and their lives with one another. These are very special times. A close friend Mike Love came to classes with his father when I started the first school in the USA. They came to many courses together and we grew ever closer as friends through the years.
The whole class held their projects for me to record their end of the day. I hope that you all enjoy these pictures.
Of course, at the end of the day, the shop often looks like this some evenings as I turn off the lights to go home. Projects glued up and waiting for the next day to take the clamps off. A true sense of accomplishment fills the morning air and I feel contentment with them.
