This morning I ordered 15 new quickdraws. I'm not exactly sure why I ordered new quickdraws, probably a combination of factors: They were black and therefore cool; my friend was ordering some; I'm trying to impress a girl on an upcoming climbing trip (I'm pretty sure girls are impressed with new climbing gear); I've been culturally trained to feel good about buying things, and they were the lightest bent wire gate carabiner on the market. A whopping 28 grams per carabiner. Climbing is going to be so easy now. My old carabiners weighed a heavy 38 grams. Thats a 10 gram difference. Distrubuted over 30 carabiners thats a weight saving of 300 grams. Or 11 carabiners. Or .66138 pounds. That weight savings alone will probably allow me to lead at least one grade harder. Maybe even 5.7.
In the search for new carabiners I almost purchased some that weighed 31 grams. If I had bought those my draws combined would have weighed .198 pounds more. I wouldn't ha
ve onsighted anything this year if I had bought those. Thankfully the cool black draws were in stock and now I'm all set for pulling down hard and not being weighed down by all those extra grams.
Don't tell Royal about all this. I think he'd kick my sissy ass.
Outside of lusting after new climbing gear I recently finished my application essay for
College of the Redwoods. I'm hoping to spend August 2011-May 2012 in Fort Bragg CA learning from some of the best woodworkers in the country.
The school was started by
James Krenov whose passionate work with wood is known world wide. Here is my essay:
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| James Krenov and his hands. |
“Even more of these people have had no craft education at all. They’ve simply come across wood for one reason or another, found it interesting, and have begun to putter with it.” These words of James Krenov accurately describe how I’ve come to be interested in wood. It is not a family legacy; I did not inherit hand planes from my grandfather or spend time in my fathers’ woodshop as a child. I’m not sure how to tell the story of how I became interested in wood, other than that I just did. Perhaps like Krenov said I simply “felt a need for an intimate contact with a material.”
Last summer I had the opportunity to take the Tools and Techniques class taught by Jim Budlong and Todd Sorenson. To say that my knowledge of woodworking prior to my Budlongian education was minimal would be an exaggeration in my favor. I had once attempted to use a hand plane to strip the finish off of a section of bowling alley floor. This was what Jim and Todd had to work with
Over the course of three weeks I learned more than I could of imagined. Though, often my learning and experience was far from the image of the romanticized carpenter that I fantasized I would be. The first days my mind and fingertips went numb with the monotony of sharpening brand new plane irons as I wondered where the wood was? I hadn’t realized there were things to prepare before getting into a piece of wood. Things like tools. Things like myself.
The wood eventually came and the next several days were full of the wonderful experience of handling wood and making my own hand planes. Here was the stalwart carpenter I had hoped to be, one who is to make and then to use his own tools. To feel that connection with my hand, with my tools was stirring. To think of one day creating furniture with these beautiful planes that I had made, not purchased, filled me with a humble contentedness. However, any grand visions that I had dreamt up were soon exposed to the learning curve of actually using my planes.
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| One of the best books I've ever read. |
Matthew Crawford so eloquently states in
Shop Class as Soulcraft, “Not only do things tend to go to hell, but your own actions contribute inevitably to that process.” The next project was the perfect board, a rough sawn piece of wood that we were to square from every side, cut down the middle and then rejoin. My enthusiasm dwindled as I moved from the basic actions with the machines to the finer work with the planes. My vocabulary shrunk in proportion to the amount of width that my board lost as shaving after shaving revealed to me that my two halves would quiet possibly not be rejoined to make a whole. For two days only four letter words came from my lips as I stayed at my bench during lunch and after class, taking much too thick of shavings off of my board. My actions were truly contributing to the state of my board. Slowly though, through direction and coaching, I learned about my planes and how to handle them, how to adjust the iron for just the thinnest shaving. I learned the importance of a truly sharp tool. Then one afternoon I placed my two halves together for the umpteenth time and there was no rock. I stood in silent rapture, the two pieces met in near perfect unison and not a trace of the cut was visible to my eye. I had achieved this, never mind that six inches of shavings stood about my feet. There were more experiences like this, experiences that seemed as defeats and some that seemed to be victories. I put together a set of half blind dovetails that I was very proud of. They fit together tightly and I hadn’t splintered any end grain in finishing them. They were also completely ass-backward with the joint revealed in the front instead of the side. Budlong now has them in his collection of dovetails gone wrong to use as a future class example. I signed them for him.
I had come into the class thinking I knew what woodworking would be like. I saw myself standing tall over a workbench, a smile on my face and a song on my lips, my hand and arms moving in the motion of the creation of some glorious piece of furniture. Instead I often sat exhausted at my bench, my head in my hands in bemused frustration. But I learned. I learned a little about wood and a lot about myself. I learned that my vision of the mastery of a trade was as conceded as could be, that if I were to pursue becoming a craftsman it would not be by force or mastery over wood, but by a mastery that only comes from a relationship with it, a deep understanding of and intimacy with the wood that can only come through much time spent with it. Time spent sitting and learning of myself and how I relate to the wood and the tools, and what the wood and tools have to tell me about myself. Time spent in struggle, in contemplation, and in patience. Time spent in submission waiting for the sum of my poor techniques to give in to that beautiful pass with a plane that pulls off the thinnest shaving like a tissue and brings forth the shine of grain that came from a tool made and used in my hands.
To say that my experience has been all frustration and difficulty would be misleading. I had just as much fun and enjoyment in the Tools and Techniques class as not. The smell of the wood and the feel of my planes moving under my hands brought to me a simple pleasure, and as Krenov says, “To do something we enjoy is to begin to know ourselves.” He was absolutely right and it was from the struggle born of my enjoyment that I learned. This was the purpose for me, to allow the wood to reveal my need for improvement and to come away as a better person, a better craftsman. Matthew Crawford says “Craftsmanship must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where ones failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away.” To see my shortcomings in full light gave me something to look to and improve upon. The hoped improvement was as exciting as looking over planks of spalted oak, as reassuring as the feel of my planes. Now that I hope to go forward in this craft of woodworking it is the patient struggle that I look to. It is what will make me both a better person with my tools and a better person with myself.
If I were to overlook my romanticized desire to work with wood it would be a discredit to my heart. I too find a peace in the workshop, calmness in the use of my hands, humbleness in the work. To explain the anticipation, the joy, the hope I have for working in wood is difficult. All I know is that I desire it, all of it. From the excitement of the discovery of a beautiful pattern in the grain to the long sit wondering how to use the grain. I cannot say anymore than that what Krenov said. “It seems right and it feels good.” There is something within that stirs when I think of embarking on a relationship, a life spent with wood. It’s an excitement and a peace both at the same time.
My goals in woodworking have changed since I first entered the shop in Fort Bragg. I would be lying if I said I did not care about being good or creating beautiful simple pieces of furniture that will attract others to them. I still want that. I want to be a good craftsman with all the technical knowledge that comes with it. I want others to be drawn to my work by its simple beauty, and to see a bit of my hand in it. But what is good and beautiful seems to have changed in me. Yes, on a pragmatic level I want to know more of the how, more of the technique. I cannot work in wood without this knowledge; I need that experience to continue. But I don’t want it to all be plans and executions. As Krenov writes, I want to learn how to sit with the wood and listen to it, and to be careful with it. I want to feel the responsibility of a beautiful piece of wood and to be patient with myself, to be patient with my work with it. I want to have the skills that would make me responsible to that wood in the first place. I cannot be responsible to something that I do not understand how to fully care for. I want to learn how to care for the wood in my work and relationship with it. I acknowledge that I have less experience than others who would apply for this program but I don’t know of any better way to gain that experience than to sit with the skilled instructors and students that the College of the Redwoods attracts and to learn from them. I will paraphrase Krenov for a better summation of my goals: I want to learn and to work honestly and well, but with humility too.
Thank you for your consideration in the upcoming school year.
Bryce Green
So that's what my posts will be about I think. Working in wood and being in the mountains. And some of the stuff that happens between.
