I was in law school, and I woke up in a cold sweat one morning early on and
realized that that was the last thing in the world I really wanted to do.
But in order to make some money one time I joined a carpentry crew,
and things just clicked immediately. I just understood everything they asked me to
do and could do it.
So before very long at all I was doing the trim carpentry.
I was building bookcases and built-in cabinet work.
And at that point I took a look at furniture again and said oh man that's made out of wood too.
How in the world did they do that?
And decided that I wanted to be a furniture maker.
So for several years I made my living as a kitchen cabinet maker.
I was making a living and looking for every opportunity trying fishing for
every opportunity to make a piece of fine hardwood furniture whenever I got
the chance
And before long I found myself with a 15,000 square foot factory and
25 employees, to make the long story short.
I found myself behind a desk all
day long again on the phone all the time putting out fires,
handling labor problems, handling supplier problems.
The only time I touched a piece of wood was
when I had to go out to the wood storage shed with a with a representative from
the sawmill to show him how the wood that they sent us wasn't wasn't adequate.
That was very frustrating for me because I had gotten out of the white-collar
world because I wanted to work with my hands and build beautiful things and I
was not working with my hands and I wasn't building anything that was
particularly beautiful. I was building pretty pretty mundane stuff.
As the business was growing into an enterprise I was starting to
I was starting to get commissions for really fine custom pieces.
I did several commissions of 18th century work that started to get noticed and started to bring about commissions
that were good enough and big enough and valuable enough where I realized I could
actually make a living for my family off of just custom commissions.
So I sold that business the first chance I got and determined never to have more than two
assistants again, and built this shop that we're in.
In many ways I wish I had it to do over again because I would lay out the
shop quite differently. But I've managed to get everything done that I
needed to do in this building.
My parents had a book on 18th century English furniture and in it was a
double-page spread picture of an English desk on bookcase or one might say a
secretary. And the workmanship of it was just incredible. I just I specifically
remember that piece of furniture, obviously many pieces of furniture
affected me but but that particular one just just knocked me out. And it was
fancy veneer and fancy carved. It was just beyond my wildest imagination to
actually be able to accomplish. I think at this point I could accomplish it, and
I've done things of that level. But at the time it was it was just like
looking at magic. The first commission I got for a piece of real furniture was a
sheet music cabinet for a lady that my family knew.
She wanted a sheet music cabinet and I made it out of cherry.
And I look back at it now and given my level of skill and knowledge, it was a
really a creditable piece of furniture and I'm very proud of having done it.
And actually I look back at it I'm kind of amazed that I was able to do it when I did.
I classify myself as self-taught but a self-taught person finds all
kinds of mentors. People to teach them this or ....
I had one set of mentors that taught me skills and techniques and another set of mentors
that taught me styles and design. And in my particular case the two
didn't cross over very much. My style mentors didn't really know a whole lot
about technique or skill, they weren't makers. And my maker mentors really
didn't know as much about style as I wanted to know. So I needed both groups
to pull it together.
Not long after I started, Fine Woodworking came on the scene
and I just started devouring that every word on every page.
And a couple of other magazines came on the scene and then they started publishing
books and I devoured all of them.
So I learned a whole lot from reading as well.
So did anybody ever want to barter you like a '72 Chevy for a piece of work.
I did, I did actually. I traded a chair once for a Triumph TR3, which was
which was fun. And I ended up selling the TR3 for quite a nice profit.
So I've done something like that. When you asked about funny stories the
the funniest story that comes to mind is the client from hell.
They blandished me with the offer of tens of thousands of dollars worth of commissions.
I should have known better when the when the lady said that she
wanted the underside of everything to be just as pretty as the show surfaces so
that her cats would be able to enjoy it.
Looking back on it the the humor of of
having to work with someone who was as concerned with with what her cats saw as
what as what she saw,
I can laugh at that.
I've just got the packrat mentality. I just can't stand to see something
potentially useful be thrown away.
Every time I throw away a pattern that I worked so hard to to develop
When realized I'm not ever gonna make that piece of furniture again
Still I worked so hard to develop a good pattern that, that they all, they all have a history
here sitting in the shop and I can remember every piece of furniture I made
when I look at that pattern.
And it's hard it's hard to throw them away.
A lot of the people that I teach, nowadays when I teach, are people who
have worked in industry or at a profession that they didn't really love
and what they love is their woodworking that they do as a hobby.
Well I've been able to, I've been able to make a halfway decent
living, doing it full-time.
That's, it's an incredible blessing to have stumbled into it.
I did just sort of stumble backwards into it.
How I discovered myself as someone who can do this stuff is,
was just circumstance,
but it sure was a happy thing