Box Building and Shelves Are Done

There is always a lot to learn in woodworking and I have taught enough students to know what the core essentials are that must be understood.

Sabina is here from Sweden and so too Jimmy. They do different jobs with nothing linked to woodworking but they like doing things outside their weekly work with the their own hands. To them, as it is for others, it’s increasingly important to take charge of things about that area of life they see as their defined sphere. This sphere is a sphere I know and have lived most of my life living and working to my own path and ambition yet always in some measure for others. Living in a lifestyle enables us to influence others who might or might not feel the same way we do about a lived life. By defining that area of life we have control of we determine the things we do that make sense. Instead of looking for things to spend hard-earned income on we spend hard-earned time making and creating a sphere in which to live within high levels of creative fulfillment. What make much difference is when two people work creatively  in the same sphere alongside each other on the same days to build a life of creativeness. This I value in people who can work it out. It’s often more difficult to share such things agreeably because we all have views, feelings and interests that must be agreed moment by moment throughout the sphere of creativity they are striving to define. It is easy to selfishly define our own sphere that even includes others, but creating a sphere jointly means submitting to one another and this takes us beyond parcelling out chores and roles in separation. They work to create that which suits them and will, in time define them more deeply in their work. I like to think people can do these things and remain loyal to their vision of creativity and a lived life of vision and expression.

David has two boys and a wife waiting at home for his return. He too has a passion for what he does and came to us for nine days to spend concentrated time deepening this passion. This immersion undergirds his future in a long term commitment to become a master woodworker and I can see that he plans to invest himself mastering what might take him a hundred times longer without this course. As a father and a master in my own creative sphere I understand the heart of a man who wants more for his children. You plan things for them, but working with them creatively has become increasingly challenged by the unreality realms of Microsofts Xbox. Woodworking has become undervalued today and instead of family woodworking it’s become more and more a dad’s den workshop. I cannot speak for my sons, but I loved being with them in my workshop. That period now spans 25 years and I think back to some of my fondest memories being with them pushing spokeshave, planes, chisels and saws into wood every day of those 25 years.

James too has two children. A boy and a girl. Who knows where all of this will go for him. I know he has to young people he can take what he has learned this week and pour into them when he returns home. He has learned a lot and he too is a high self-demand person that strives for exemplary levels of workmanship. We don’t really use words like exemplary and workmanship these days. I think he will do something with what he is learning that he can apply to his daily worklife too.