Solitude and Community

My life in the shop in the shop tends to be a solitary one —I share the space with two friends but they both work in film and are rarely around so for the most part it’s just me working alone—I don’t mind this—I like the quiet and space to work in—generally this has been true in my life as well so I’ve been wondering about how this blog works with the solitude of the shop—I think this is an experiment in community and an attempt to create connection—I moved back to Vancouver a couple of years ago and made a decision to make this my home which is something I’d always resisted doing—part of creating a sense of home has involved becoming connected to my neighborhood on a personal level—from knowing local business owners to Eugene who works the corner for change outside my building—putting down roots isn’t something that comes naturally to me and I’m still figuring this out—writing this blog is a part of that exercise—

It’s also a writing exercise for me—before moving back to this city I threw out 20 years of journals and writing in a rash attempt to clean some slate (incidentally someone found these journals at the dump and seems to be trying to sell them—this is indicated by a comment posted on one of my old band’s videos that’s on Youtube—weird…they're not the most captivating ramblings)—I didn’t write anything for two years and realized I was missing it –in many ways this is just me getting back into practice so bear with me—

Glued up the Baltic birch cores for the table today and fit all the tenons—tomorrow is oak lamination day—I’m excited!

Process

I have certain process and pace in how I work—There is a an internal ratio of thought, planning, and speed of execution—I’ve learned over the years that when I try to mess with that ratio things start to go wrong—I really need to have a complete picture in my head of how things are going look and fit together before I start cutting up anything—Creating templates of all the pieces is the next step to check proportional values—I’m somewhat obsessed with the Golden Mean and natural proportion—Beauty is often nothing more complicated than a simple mathematical equation (1.618) and I love the simplicity of that—

George Nakashima (the incredible American furniture maker) believed that every piece of wood has its specific purpose—its place in a piece of furniture—I think too that every piece of piece of furniture has its perfect shape and it’s the designer and builder’s job to see that shape—to see how that shape will fit a space—I have been fortunate to have the opportunity in the past few months to work with the particularly talented local architect and designer, Scott Cohen—I’ve learned a great deal from him about angles, curves, and the space they can comfortably inhabit—Scott stopped by the shop this afternoon to see the table mock up and with a couple of minor changes I’ll start building tomorrow!

The Big Jig

My jig to do a 16' radius for a conference table. It was big...

Boxing Day

December 26^th (Boxing Day) is Canada’s equivalent to Black Friday in the U.S.—there is a shopping frenzy across the country and usually I stay out of the way—this year however, however, I decided to venture into the throngs to purchase a couple of items for the shop—the first being a camera I can leave at the shop—utilitarian in purpose and inexpensive enough so when it is permeated with dust and the lens is covered in glue I won’t be too heartbroken—the other item I was looking for was a cheap radio/cd player—I’ve had bad experiences with ipods in the shop environment  (see aforementioned dust and glue) and again I was hunting for something inexpensive that served its purpose—

CBC Radio has been my primary soundtrack lately—over the years I’ve experimented with working to the 70’s and 80’s punk I grew up on—then I went through a lengthy hip hop phase that ended in me playing the The Roots catalogue exclusively for several months—After Chuck D, Dre, RZA, and Black Thought had run their course I started bringing in a variety of Drum and Bass—I thought I had finally found the perfect music to work to—it was driving and I didn’t feel like I was missing something when I turned the table saw on—but after a year of moody beats I realized it was kind of depressing and just turned on the radio—

Living in Canada for the majority of my life I think I have become quite attached to the CBC—it’s often banal programming is interspersed with just enough excellence to keep me interested but rarely enough to keep me from losing focus or hesitating to turn on heavy machinery in fear of missing something important—eventually I’ll probably go off on some other tangent (lately I’ve been finding silence quite enjoyable) but for the time being at 10:00 am. I’ll be listening to “Q” and “Dispatches” in the afternoon—

My shopping excursion was both fruitful and relatively low stress—maybe tomorrow I’ll take a picture of my little radio--

Christmas Day 2010

I love how quiet the streets are on Christmas morning--even on the corner of Main and Broadway there is a sense of calm that pervades--I got up early and wandered outside into the December drizzle to get a cup of coffee (I also like how in Vancouver there is always somewhere open to get a coffee) and was taken by the stillness that only seems to happen once a year--

Christmas gives me a feeling of hope--the days are getting longer and though winter is really only just beginning I feel as though I need to start preparing my home and my shop for the coming year--in a couple minutes I'm going to head down the hill, sweep the shop floor, and clear space --put away tools and jigs in their proper places--I'm starting a large oak conference table next week and I need as much open area as possible to lay it out--space to focus--there is nothing that has potential like a clean shop!