Moving In

My Journal Entry Wednesday 18 April 2018

 

Today was a good day to move the office from the dining/rest/meeting room area upstairs. The now new dedicated space seemed ready for everyone after a very long wait for the promise of premium working conditions. I am not yet allowed to move until the latest series of the blanket chest/linen chest/hope chest/dowry chest/trousseau chest/ is videoed for continuity. It’s been an exciting time of course because everyone has been so cramped for the past couple of years and just as a goldfish is constrained swimming conditions like a small goldfish bow stops growing, it can feel a bit like that when the support for a creative sphere like ours becomes too tight. On the plus side I can say this, we have all learned to work together and share the space and whereas we may not have been able to grow externally or even visibly, we have all grown internally to better understand the true nature of our work to work in spheres we may have only known little of before.

Yes, we were a week behind our scheduled move in because the build took them longer through manpower issues, and these things are hard to factor into any schedule, but in the grand scheme of things it’s been good because the excitement of a dedicated office, studio and garage means we now have exactly what we planned. Imagine the next stage is like a blank sheet, an unpainted canvass if you will, where we add the texture and vibrancy for creativity to thrive. The floor plan is like this.

Whereas I will be building everything for the houseful of furniture right here in the garage, we are setting up six of the school workbenches for our staff to work on during their workday. These benches will also be used for training others too, Hannah for instance will continue her training here and she will have a dedicated space for the coming future. Izzy is working with me for something we have called ‘Common Woodworking’. It’s our way of covering the basics of woodworking so that people can follow our suggestions for getting into real woodworking.

For those who might think our efforts a little over the top I thought that this might help. You see I’m not on my own any more. To expand our horizons had to go bigger than just me. It wasn’t enough for me to be the teacher and trainer we had to match the high demand for what we pass on to the upcoming generations. With what I see as the shortfall in today’s educational providers we are not just filling in the gaps but now endeavouring to lead the way. We don’t have their resources but what we do have is staff that are as passionate as me about our outreach. To do that meant we could no longer film with archaic equipment cobbled together to make things work. You see it was more a question of time and efficiency which can indeed destroy our ability put out the quality of our content. We searched for added people, specialists in their field. With that came individual expertise and that meant new equipment to match their skills and creative bent. For me it would be wrong to hamper them by not giving them rein to expand their creative sphere with the right encouragement. If I have the best workbench I can give myself and the best tools to match too, then they too should be equally equipped. Just not having half a dozen tripods on the floor tripping your every move has helped us to not just be creative but adventuresome too. Life is already so much easier.