United Congregational

I teach guitar for the Valley School of Music which is situated in the United Congregational Church in Whitinsville, MA.  Today I went in to the church to drop off some notes for work and snapped a couple of images of the Congregational room.  This place is beautiful.  I'm not much of a church goer but I love the architecture.  This church was built by the Whtitin family, giving their workers a place to worship.  I love the vaulted ceilings and the woodwork.  It;s very inspirational.

Getting closer

Yesterday I trimmed and hung the last door o Liesl's studio.  We are one step closer to getting it completely finished.  All that is left to do is to hang the stove pipe.  The studio is looking really nice.

New Studio

Today Liesl and I moved the rest of her studio.  We set up her new studio.  It looks great'  Now I just have to finish installing the wood stove.

Product

Here are some images of the work the Artful Phoenix now has in their inventory.
Thank you again to Melissa and Jan.

Thank you again to Melissa and Jan.

The Artful Pheonix

Yesterday I delivered some work to a gallery in North Attleboro.  The Artful Phoenix is a relatively new gallery and is located at 21N.Washington St in North Attleboro.  Washington street is awesome.  It has a lot of local cafes, bakeries, galleries and great places to rummage.  I'm very excited about this new relationship with the gallery, owners Melissa and Jan have a great space.  There is even a room for the public to sit, read, have a coffee and use the Internet.

The gallery took eleven  pieces of mine, four bread side tables, two pairs of tea lights, two shaker style pine end tables, one walnut and maple side table, a walnut and aluminum bench and a mahogany tea box..  For more information about the artful phoenix please check out their web site at http://www.theartfulpheonix.com/

Studio Floor

Today we painted the floor of  Liesl's new studio with a high heat paint.  The floor needed painting so we just covered the entire floor with this black paint.   It will help the area around the wood stove and it will help Liesl find any parts on the floor if she drops some small silver pieces.  The floor looks great'.

We're almost there'

Finished interior

Yesterday I finished putting up all of the trim in Liesl's new studio.  I attached the metal reflector and started to paint the floor with a high heat paint.  I need to finish painting and attach the wood stove. We also need to replace the interior hollow core door.  I'm really proud of this space, we put it together with no budget.  The insulation and some plywood were donated by our friend Jeff.  Our lanlord donated the metal and I made the doors out of a large crate I found near a dumpster.  The trim is recycled 1 x 3's

Studio Doors

Yesterday afternoon I finished and hung the other doors for Liesl's studio.  If I don't say so myself they look great'.  I'm especially proud that we scrounged and salvaged the wood to make them.  These old planks of barn board will age nicely and get a great patina.  Now I just have to finish the interior.

More Doors

Last evening I finished the third and final door for Liesl's studio.  I wish I had more time to work on it and get it done for her so she can make work.  She misses it terribly.  So do I.  I wish we had more time to spend in our studios.  Our son Quinn is in pre-school three days a week, which I'm very grateful for but it means we only get to work part time.  We are both very passionate about what we do and are very fortunate to have discovered this passion.  Some people let life pass them by without ever discovering their passion or if they have discovered it  they don't have the nerve to try making a living doing it.   It's a tough job when you have the time to do it full time let a lone only three days a week.  Liesl, Quinn and I have moved four times in less than two years and have moved studio spaces and equipment three times.  We organized the move and did most of the work ourselves.

  I'm very proud of what we've achieved in this time with only three days a week to do it.  We've both written articles, we maintain our blogs, we enter exhibitions and shows, we've developed a business plan for a school, we teach and finally we  make work while raising our son.  Through all of this madness we have tried to keep a calm household so the transition for our son was easy.  We both raise our son.  Either one of us could easily not participate and leave the rearing to the other but neither one of us is that archaic.  This isn't the 1800's.  where the little lady stays at home and the man only works.  Today both parents play a role in bringing up and raising the children..  I love my time with my son and I love it when he runs into my arms and gives me a huge bear hug.  He wants to spend time with me and misses it when he can't. If you're a parent out there who's children don't want to spend time with you then maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why?  It's never too late.to make changes  I hate hearing excuses.   A lot of people always have an excuse for everything or always play the victim.  If you need help get help'  If you want to help, then help,  If you dislike your job, change it.  If you want to lose weight, then lose it, if you drink too much, then stop'  No excuses these days..  There are plenty of organizations and resources out there too get help for anything.

It takes a brave and courageous and strong person to try and make a living as an artist/crafts person these days, especially in these tough economic times.  You not only subject your personal work to scrutiny and critique, because there's a lot of people out there who love to give their opinion and scrutinize what it is you do, yet they could never stand there and take their lumps. You also subject yourself to scrutiny from people who feel your not working an honest job, etc,etc.  These people have a lot to say but could never and will never do what we do.  They just don't have the nerve.  So they criticize or throw out their opinions easily without ever trying and always making or having an excuse. They are so unhappy and miserable so it's easier to bring others down and to criticize others instead of rising above it and getting the help they need or make the changes they need to make in order to live a healthier and happier life. I'm very proud of what Liesl and I have achieved and will achieve, all the while only being able to do it three days a week.  Our passion is making objects, it's what centers us and drives us.  Have you ever noticed that even though it's incredibly tough , the people who follow their own path and do what their passion is are always happy and can find a reason to smile.  Liesl and I have had to borrow some money to get by this past year and a half.  We are not proud of it.  We have had friends ( without provocation) who have just sent checks to us because they understand and they want to help.  These people are also folks who can't afford to do so, they have had the bottom  fall out themselves.   Some people have everything, money, the time to do anything they want to yet they are very unhappy and look to others or things to make them happy.  It's true what they say " money can't buy you happiness".  I'm not proud that we have to borrow money at times.  We only ask for the minimum.  Like so many people have to do these days we buy our clothes and our furnishings at the Salvation Army or the Goodwill and we go to the food bank once a month for groceries.  So many people have everything and yet are still unhappy and for some reason want to bring others down with them instead of applauding their courage and strength to follow their dreams and passion.  Fear is just as bad as prejudice.  We get the mainstays like bread, milk, etc at the grocery store but this is what we have to do in order to make a living in this tough time. 

 I'm proud of Liesl.  She has discovered her passion and is trying her best to do it, all the while making work and doing her part raising our son.  She doesn't make excuses and tries not to rely on people.  Some folks walk through life with blinders on. They turn around and all of a sudden they find that their children are in their thirties and not fifteen, yet they treat them like they are because that is all they know and what they find comfortable. I'm proud of us, we lost our jobs, lost our house all only less than two years ago and with a new baby yet you would never know it.  We don't ask for much and we don't make excuses or when someone says that they had it rough we don't say "Oh Yea" "Well we had it this way or that".  Use that experience too make you wiser and stronger and help people. It's not a competition.  I'm very proud of our friends.  They are beautiful, honest people who I admire and they admire us.  Our friends respect us and I respect them. I strongly feel that you can tell the true measure of a person  through their friends, the company they keep, or more importantly what kind of people your friends are.  All of our friends are nice, honest people.  Like minds attract like minds.  So- when people try to dump their emotional baggage on us I look at Liesl and our friends and I know we are doing the right thing and we are good people.  We hold our heads high and are proud of ourselves.  If your someone who doesn't have any friends, or who doesn't have friends who just randomly come to visit because they enjoy the person you are then you should ask yourself why? It's never too late to make changes.

 I'm tired of people who want to add to our pressure of trying to make a living and raising our son.  It's been a rough two years, we don't need any more heaped on us and why would you want to?.  If people really want too help then help, no more I'm going to or I should be, or because of this and that.  Just do it, no excuses and for no cost or kick back.  Like I said earlier, thank you to all who have helped.  I mean it'  Without you folks we wouldn't be able to have a roof over our head nor would our son be in daycare, especially thanks to those who did it randomly, without us having to ask.  You have never mention it nor do you throw it in our face and remind us of how generous you've been.  When that happens it takes away from the kind, random act and makes it seem like the motivation to help was for false reasons.

 

Giving someone money or giving them a loan doesn't then give you entitlement.  Relationships are earned, no matter how old you are.  Bad, unhealthy relationships can be severed.  It doesn't matter if it's a parent, daughter, lover, older or younger.  You earn a respectful relationship.  So- to those who want to interfere, don't'.' Live your life and let others live theirs and keep your opinions to yourself.  It seems that the people I meet in life who have nothing and have had to work so hard for everything are the most generous and humble people out there'  Some folks have had everything handed to them and yet they want more and are so unhappy,or blindly can't see how they have had so much opportunity provided for them and yet they still play the victim and expect more. Like most things this type of ignorance stems from fear.  When you do nothing all day it's easier to get wrapped up in the goings on of other peoples lives than make something of your own. I don't understand it.

In the words of Wendell Castle

There are three types of people out there

There are those who make things happen

Those who watch things happen

And those who wonder " what happened"?

Which type are you?

My apologies for the rant.  I like to keep the blog about projects I'm making, not opinions.  I just want to have the energy too keep making without having to deal with other stuff, life is hard enough.  I just wish people would keep their oppinions to themseleves, either do something or be quiet, we don't need to hear it,  Just respect what we're trying to do.  I don't care if you disagree with it.  We're not on this planet to please you but to live our own lives.  That's our right.'

There are many types of people in the world and we can all make a living doing what we choose.  I don't crticize what path anyone follows in life or what they do for a living.  Let us do what we choose to do and be who we are.

Thank you'

That's it- no more rants just projects and craft news.

Thanks for following this blog and thanks to all of the artist and crafts people in the world for making life  colorful and interesting, and thanks to those who have had the nerve to stand alone and carve their own path and blaze a trail for others to follow.  Thanks for having the balls to stand alone and do it..

Bravo

Back to projects.

Here is the third door I made for the studio.  It's made out of salvaged wood  

Shed/Studio Doors

We are slowly converting the back garden shed into a studio space for Liesl.  Today I scoured the neighborhood and found some pressure treated boards by a dumpster, cut them to size and made two new doors for the shed.  We don't have the budget to buy new materials so we are recycling and re purposing materials.  I used the boards to create two 'Z' style barn doors only I reversed the 'Z' to form a diamond pattern, after all, it will be a jewellery studio. We need to paint the floor. put in the wood stove and make another door.  Slowly but surely.  I can't wait to get this done for Liesl.

Future Studio

The shed at the back of the yard is slowly being converted into a small studio space.  I have an old wood stove that my blacksmith friend Dick Sargent made.  I'm going to pop out the back window and fit it with a piece of metal that the stove pipe will go through.  The walls have been insulated, thanks to Jeff Ellis for his donation of bags of insulation, and the walls are getiing covered with 3/8 inch plywood, again- thanks to Jeff.  Everything will get a coat of paint and we'll then have a nice studio space that Liesl can use to run her business and teach out of. 

Inspiration

As a maker and a an educator you are always looking for sources of inspiration and teaching aids.  I teach at different craft schools across the country and I'm always on the lookout for used woodworking books.  I'll drop in the Salvation Army and other thrift stores at least three times a week to see if I can find some used woodworking books or an object I can use in a project.  You can never have enough books.  Some of the information might seem a little redundant but it's more about the images.  You can use the old books with the great illustrations as teaching aids.  They make great hand-outs for students.  They can also be very inspirational and spawn some great ideas.
Here is a bookcase in my garage with just a few of the books and magazines I draw inspiration from.

Dumpster Diving

I have a small collection of miniature chairs that give me inspiration as a maker.  I'm particularly drawn to a modern aesthetic.  One of the chairs in my collection is a white metal patio chair.  The other day I was in the back of a factory looking in the dumpster and I saw a full size white metal patio chair.  Awesome, it is exactly like the miniature one.  I couldn't believe it.  The chair could use a coat of paint but other than that it's in perfect condition.

Full Circle

I made these Adirondack chairs quite a few years ago and I've mentioned them before but I feel they have

 come full circle.Liesl, Quinn and I have gone through a lot in the last year and a half.  It is only a year and a half ago that we left New Jersey.  We use to sit out side and watch the sun set in these old Adirondack chairs.  Since then we haven't had a yard to put them in but we moved recently and now we have a yard again.  I feel like the chairs have come full circle.   It's good to see them in the yard.

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The Ubiquitous Adirondack Chair

A couple of months ago Saskatchewan based wood artist Michael Hosaluk invited me to submit some work for an exhibition he was curating titled " Chairisms".. Michael sent out a hundred invitations to artist across the globe.  He wanted us to submit sketches, drawings, renderings and essays.  I submitted some sketches of original works as well as my thoughts on my favorite chair, below

The Ubiquitous Adirondack Chair

It’s been nearly Eight years now since I was given a bunch of old pine plank flooring that came out of a house on Cape Cod that was being renovated. I was working at the Worcester Center for Crafts in Worcester Massachusetts when a gentleman came into the wood studio and said he had a bunch of old floorboards that he would like to give away. The boards came out of a Cape Cod house from the 1800’s. They were of random widths and lengths and had nail holes throughout. This was very generous of him but they weren’t really good for much in the way of fine furniture. I thanked him and he told me that he and his family had just recently renovated the house and because of business were now moving to Austin Texas. They loved their old home and were sad to leave it. He wanted to make sure the boards would go to good use and thought someone at the center could use them. He asked if we could send him a picture of the end result.

The old boards sat around the wood studio for a couple of years. Once in a while I would haul them out, dust them off and wonder what I would make with them. They were beautiful as objects themselves. They were finished with a varnish on one side that was peeling and was a deep amber color and the other side was a rich grey. The boards were streaked, stained by the old square head nails. I couldn’t imagine running the boards through the planer. I didn’t want to take away the old varnish. I also didn’t think they would survive, they were so old and brittle.

A year later I was working in the wood studio with a student of mine. It was an open studio and we were working on our own projects. I noticed David had brought in a bunch of templates. I asked him what he was making and he said he was going to make a pair of Adirondack chairs for a friend. At that moment I realized what I was going to use the boards for. I had always wanted to make a pair of Adirondack chairs myself and these boards of random widths and thickness would be perfect. As a maker we are always trying to create and design something new, meaningful, innovative and note worthy. I have numerous sketches of chair designs in my sketchbook but I can never design a chair that speaks, never mind, screams of a certain purpose and function like that of the Adirondack chair. The sole purpose of this chair by means of its design is to sit back stop what you’re doing and just relax.

I made the chairs out of the old pine plank floorboards. The boards with their varying widths and thickness worked well for the chairs. In the end the chairs looked like they came off of a porch from a house from the 1800’s. If it weren’t for the drywall screws I used you would never know.

As a designer and maker I feel a little silly submitting these chairs. I should submit something of my own design but these chairs I made out of the old boards hold so much meaning and so much history. These chairs now sit in front of my studio and I often sit in them after a hard day at work. I think how the person who first made them must have felt after he made them, proudly admiring his hand work and sitting in them relaxing after a hard day at work.

I often think about the man who through his random act of generosity, and who’s name escapes me now has become part of my family’s history. I wonder how his family is in Austin. These chairs also make me think of the student whose templates I used to make these chairs. I think of my friend Mike in New Jersey who ran into the chairs with a snowplough because I had left them outside all winter. They survived. I grew up in Ontario Canada and spent most of my summers at my friend Dave Bawden’s cottage. I remember sitting on the dock on a pair of chairs very similar to these. Back home in Ontario we call these Muskoga chairs named after a Lake District in Ontario.

No matter what you call them or where you are in the world these chairs have become ubiquitous. We hardly notice them, they are omnipresent. Every store sells a variation of them, some in plastic, some in wood. Akiko Busch, author of " The Uncommon Life of Common Objects" published by Metropolis Magazine and D.A.P Inc uses an image of an Adirondack chair on the book cover.

I love these chairs. I now carve out my own family history with them. I sit in them with my son and read stories. I sit in them next to my partner Liesl and watch the sun set. I hope one day I can design and build a chair that will have so much meaning.