College of The Redwoods Fine Furniture: Week 6

 I can't believe that I've been here for six weeks, that of the past 42 days 35 of them have been spent inside the wood-shop, on the machines and at my bench. Time moves differently here. For me it is not measured so much in hours or days, in the hands of a clock, but in the movement of my hand. The building of a plane or the cutting of some dovetails each marks a passing moment. Then it all begins to meld together and I only know Sundays simply because I am not in the shop. This morning I woke to the sound of bandsaws and tablesaws in my mind. Dreaming again.

Shorts day at the shop.

Everyone's getting into their projects now. Drawing, making cardboard mock ups. Changing the height of this or the thickness of that. Thinking about wood other than poplar, that wood that lends itself so humbly for our learning. Darrick has been living in the wood room recently, only coming out for air when there is a board he'd like to look at in a different light and to take a few shavings off in order to discover what there might be in the wood. Teak, Madrone, Bay Laurel, Cuban Mahagony, Walnut, Oak, Maple, I could go on and on. I think Darrick has seen them all in the shape of his handsome wall cabinet. And some are already cutting into their wood, finding things they did not expect; a beautiful grain pattern, or a bunch of insect holes. Roger's finding some of his apple was already host to something else before he got to it. He'll make it work though.

Adam Vorath, from NYC( by way of Iowa and Florida...)

I spent the first few days of the week alternating between sketching, flipping through design books and past students projects, and coming up with a mock up. I've found out I'm quite taken with modern Scandinavian design. I'm also surprised to find myself mocking up not a cabinet, but a bench of sorts. I thought that I would definitely be working on a wall cabinet for scotch or tea this first semester. I think I'll be using walnut.

Various stages of my mock up.

Don't worry mom, we're not getting too picky with the wood. See? We still build stuff from pallet board on Sundays.I feel a bit like Antoine de Saint-Exupery before his first flight as a mail carrier. I've learned what I need to take off, but there is a great unknown before me, an unknown filled with legends of past students work much like the legends of mountains and storms that towered in Exupery's mind before he took off on a rainy night. "The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the stars." 

Don't worry mom, we're not getting too picky with the wood. See? We still build stuff from free pallet boards in our spare time on Sundays.

Chase working in a "looser" manner than in class.