By way of introduction, I am Mike Willard, founder and general factotum of Willard Woodwrights, LLC. I am well-seasoned and solidly past retirement age. So why would any of you wish to listen to an old guy who has hatched a new business? A simple answer: It is not a new business. It is a new expression of a thread that is so firmly integrated into my life that I simply do not know how to not do it.
I am not speaking simply of a habit of long standing. Nope, this thread is the kind that keeps you awake in bed thinking of a way to express it. And sometimes greets you in the morning with a solution ready-made. I am not always in the driver’s seat of the creative process, some of it being done subconsciously, but I am always the medium of interpretation and physical fabrication measured against that template.
After a long career of carpentry and general contracting I remain enthralled by that which was always my favorite part, simply woodworking. Certainly, the former is not required in order to successfully perform the latter. In my case, they have existed in parallel, but I am not convinced that they have that much in common. Well, ok, certainly the ability to analyze and design responsible structures, but not much else. The approaches to each are are substantially divergent. In the building trades, reliable and timely execution of a known plan and doing that with perfect fidelity is the gold standard. Other trades are counting on you to provide exactly that.
Woodworking is much more open to inspiration, experimentation and arbitrary design changes which often result in a superior expression. Not every time, of course. There are unanticipated failures lurking. G. K. Chesterton said it even better: “The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this; that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed, but a thing created is loved before it exists.”
That makes sense, right? No one loves a half-constructed house, but everyone loves a finished home. And, in order to create an object which has never before existed, it is necessary to visualize it in full and to be convinced of its beauty and utility before one touches a tool. Ergo, love it (or value it) prior to creating it.
I might have gone a little deep here but all I am trying to say is this; I do not miss general contracting with all the uncertainty regarding weather, timely deliveries, trusting others to perform well and at the needed juncture, but I remain thrilled by the idea of imagining and then creating an object in wood.
Why wood? Well, why not wood? I am sure that every artist feels that his mode of expression is possible because the perfect material exists with which to do it. Listen to wood scientist, Dr Bruce Hoadley: “…wood evolved as a functional tissue of plants and not as a material to satisfy the needs of woodworkers.” Literally true, Dr Hoadley, and thank you for your contribution to the body of wood science.
Yet I am convinced that most woodworkers, when they think about it, feel richly blessed that some beneficent being or process has provided us with a material perfect for our needs, providing endless satisfaction visually and to the tactile senses of almost all people
We have talked about who and about some of the reasons why. My intention for the future is to talk about what and how. I intend to explore a specific project and illustrate how it is constructed and why I chose to do it that way. I hope that you will find this interesting and continue to read.
Mike