On keeping busy

Black Cherry Bowl with assorted cutting boards (coming to the Store soon!)

Big Cherry Bowl that I turned on my lathe. See store for details.

A Victorian painting of an unknown gentleman that I found this fall at a Gloucester, MA thrift store--the frame is choice too (not pictured).

Let the games[boards] begin!

Andy in the workshop, glueing up the gameboards.

Hand-planing this Cherry board for a small table where I will do Zoom meetings.

Operation Belt Sander is a "go".

Tiger King on Netflix, need I say more? Don't worry, I will...Carol Did it.

Lots of productivity this week as we continue to busy ourselves and our hands.  Like most of you, we are filling our days with creativity.  There is a lot of raw material in our workshop, just waiting for attention, and there has never been a better time than now to focus on it.  It doesn't feel so bad when we have a project in front of us.

In the first picture of the gallery above, you'll see a large bowl that I made after discovering that I had a sizeable chunk of Black Cherry wood in the corner of the woodshop.  On our Rikon bandsaw, I trimmed it down its irregular shape so that it would fit within the "swing" dimensions of my lather--about 16".  Turning it started out as a bumpy ride, the lathe was bouncing like a car on uneven terrain, but quickly evened out.  Large pieces take more time and elbow grease, and this one was really worth it; turning cherry can be a real dream.  Our studio/workshop is up on the North Shore of Massachusetts, out on Eastern Point in Gloucester, so I seldom have time to really sink in and get fully immersed in completing all of my dream projects, making all these recent completions quite satisfying.  

The next image in the gallery that you see is a Victorian painting of an unidentified gentleman. I found this around Halloween at a store in Gloucester called Second Glance--a treasure trove of castaway items, available for purchase.  The painting was in a large ornate "casetta" type frame, which might be even cooler than the painting. Both are badly damaged and have many obvious losses of material.  In the case of the painting, it is likely that something punched through the surface, puncturing and removing part of the canvas, which also has a great deal of cracking, blanching, and crazing.  Andy is trained as an art conservator and teaching me the ropes as I assist him in a variety of restoration techniques.  I will do the restoration of the frame--first with a cleaning, then taking moulds of existing frame, filling the mould, and then recreating the plaster.  Once the plaster is adhered to the surface, matching and toning the frame to go with the original coloring begins.  I love gilding, but this frame will not be receiving a 24k coat--would be far too expensive(gold is soaring on the market these days) and time consuming for a project that is meant to be for education, and will probably wind up on the wall in our apartment.  If a client wanted gold, it would happen, but we'll practice using metal pigments and see how well we do...stay tuned. 

Another project that we're working on is making game boards.  We have an abundance of wood in the shop right now that we've been using.  For our first board, we used Red Oak from Longleaf Lumber, Fishtail Oak (Lacewood) that a friend gave us, and put a White Oak boarder on it.  The wood strips were cut on the table saw, glued together (laminated) in alternating color, clamped, planed, cut again, laminated again in corresponding game board pattern, planed once more, sanded and oiled.  The process is not quick--good things take time they say--but it is well worth the investment of time for an object that will be lovingly utilized for years to come.

Raise your hand if you've had more meetings and webinars than ever in the past few weeks.  Same.
Because the meeting quotient is high, we needed a little desk/work table to take meetings--no internet out in the studio or shop is a double edged sword. I looked around the shop and found a "live edge slab" --more Cherry.  I get my live edge stock from Higher Standard Woodcutting in North Reading, MA--check the Facebook page--he mills awesome local New England species.  The wood has character.  From amazing burl figure, knotholes, streaking, and spalting.  They call this "woodworker's delight".  You will not find this type of stock or lumber at a big box store, or even really at the specialty stores, especially if you want a reasonable price.  If you're in the market, call Higher Standard.

When I spend time flattening, finishing, and sanding, I'm doing my best to highlight the natural wood, and usually opt for legs of a different material, and when I can.  I like to add legs that came from some other furniture life.  In this case, there was a table destined for the dumpster outside the school I work in--so I brought my drill next-day, and pirated the parts.  These legs are fully adjustable, which is rather desirable when making a table with a flexible purpose.

I have made many live edge tables, and what I love best is being able to study and marvel at the life and the history of the wood;  it's so unique and tells a compelling story about the tree.  The Grandaddy of the live-edge tradition is George Nakashima.  If you've never heard of him, you've probably seen some example or iteration of his far-reaching influence.  ​He let the wood be the wood.  Gorgeous.  Honest.  True.
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Tiger King.  Have. You. SEEN IT?  It is undoubtedly some of the most confusing and interesting television I have seen in a while.  I don't tend towards reality shows, but I did jump on the bandwagon with this one.  We are living in one of the strangest and most unprecedented times of ever.  Our schedules and plans have been flipped and turned and altogether thrown away.  Despite the fact that most of our days are spent indoors at home (thanks New England weather) each day requires a great deal more effort to create meaning, value, and to have some fiber of "normalcy". SO, if anything has made me feel, at all normal or well adjusted, it is Joe Exotic.  This is a guy has a LOT of crazy going on and is filming most of it at any given time.  I won't spoil it for you if you have plans to watch it, other than to say, if I have learned anything from watching Tiger King, the rest of us are doing just fine.

Current mood:  slightly angsty = ready for my next project

Coffee:  Dockside Single Origin by Breakwater Roasters--local Gloucester roaster

Song of the Moment:  Ti Mon Bo by Tito Puente https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXBgJ2ajjQs
 
Weather: high wind and rain--good thing we got those 8 yards of mulch done in the sun yesterday!
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Hope you are all safe, following the recommendations, and helping to "flatten the curve".

Stay gold!