Class is over

ByPaul Sellers

DSC_0028 It’s hard to describe changing lives and being changed. I taught my first foundational course in 1989. I developed it and copied nothing. No one helped me and it unfolded a strategy from a craftsman’s perspective. So I’ve done this course for well over two decades with 5,500 people. DSC_0002

Tonight felt settled, very settled. The chairside table is the last part of my Foundational Course and nine days of pure woodworking. We laughed of course, watched each other work from time to time, and it seemed, well, somehow clean, unique, exact and innocent that few things I know of could replicate our immersed sharing. DSC_0096 Over the past ten days or so we have come to know one another. I’m here with everyone each day all day long and not brought in for an odd lecture here and there like a guru. I spend time listening and and some times I interject and others I watch to see what they DSC_0095 do to resolve the issue themselves. struggling is harmless but then there are times when a hand pulls us up. The banter goes back and forth and we laugh a lot, share a lot and encourage one another as needed. I like to draw when I am in the class. DSC_0107 It takes no concentration and I can keep connected with the sounds and the questions that ensure things are right. I’m afraid we are only able to hold four more of these nine-day Foundationals this year. DSC_0083

In two weeks I will hold a two-day Discovering Woodworking course and I look forward to that. We’ll hold two of these this year. DSC_0090

One Comment

  1. Having just (yesterday) returned home from this course, and with due reflection, I can attest to the comments Paul has made. This was a course that inspired me. Paul distils things to a ‘simple’ totally understandable level. He cuts through the rubbish that floats round the internet and presents things from a point of view that is founded on long experience both as a craftsman and as a teacher. Around his bench, when he demonstrated the methods of construction of the various pieces we all made, or use of a particular tool, with his running commentary, there was an air of relaxed wit and repartee to which we as students and he, both fully contributed. The banter was great! I must add at this point that his apprentice Phil was also excellent helping and assisting as, when and where necessary. I can totally recommend this course.
    Chris Bailey

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