The New Yankee Workshop

The world of professional woodworking doesn't have rock stars. "I want to sand and plane all night....and turn some wood on the lathe" isn't a lyric that drips with excitement. But if building a coffee table inspired by a Parisian sheep-shearing table did pull 75,000 screaming fans into stadiums across the country the man most likely to be the featured act would be Norm Abram, the Oak Zeppelin of furniture builders. He makes other master carpenters look like awkward, pimply-faced teenagers, and the "wood guys" that work at Home Depot like crippled, three-toed marmosets.

Norm got started in television as the head carpenter on This Old House, opposite Bob Vila. In 1989 the producer of that show, interested in expanding into new programming created a spin-off show with Norm as the host, The New Yankee Workshop, which is where I first discovered him.

The show's not exciting. Not at all. In fact it often lapses into boring and mildly repetitive. But it's old school PBS programming, so glitz and flash is not what you watch for. But it is fascinating television. What Norm can do with wood never ceases to amaze me. The formula is pat. Most episodes start with him visiting some historic location and examining a piece of vintage, antique wood furniture. Then he goes back to his shop and builds a similar piece from scratch. Imagine that...being so familiar with the physical language of woodworking that you can easily translate objects without needing to disassemble them. He simply looks at a piece of furniture and quickly decodes the necessary construction steps, steps that generally aren't simple or intuitive (at least not to novices like me.)

I've written previous entries on my desire to give real woodworking a try. Norm Abram is the reason and the inspiration. I love watching him work. He makes it all seem so easy even when it's clearly not. And his collection of woodworking tools is enough to give John Holmes penis envy. At the end of each episode, when he's showing off his finished piece I'm always left wishing I could have the same experience, creating something useful and beautiful completely from scratch, using just my hands (and power tools, of course.)

Norm Abram, Wood Star Extraordinaire.



Note: As I filled in the labels for this post I found that both Norm Abram and The New Yankee Workshop had already been used before. I went back and, sure enough I'd already written an entry on the show. A much better entry than this one, in fact. Here's a link. But it didn't feature the rock star metaphor, and since I can't throw away an entry I spent 20 minutes writing in good faith that it was the first time I'd focused on the topic, I'm letting the new entry stay. Norm, you're only person that's not family that's been written about twice in this blog. Please have me as a guest on your show to return the favor. Thanks.*

* That's apparently impossible now. I just read that, as of earlier this month Norm has elected to cease taping The New Yankee Workshop. Such a bummer.

A Fantasy with Deep Roots

I've had a vision of my future for years, a possible path as of yet untrodden. I've imagined it a myriad different ways, but there is one unifying element, common to all of them. Each one casts me as a creative conduit, channeling some sort of beauty into the world, something that hadn't existed previously, and taking a huge amount of pleasure from the process.

I've imagine myself as some sort of artisan, making useful objects out of leather or wood and selling them at crafts festivals around the country. I've fantasized about being a novelist, spending hours hunched over a laptop in lazy coffeeshops and remote wilderness cabins. Sometimes I see myself building furniture or, more recently I see myself cooking up huge batches of soap in a multitude of colors and consistencies.

There are three elements to these fantasies that seem to be most important to me. Number one, they satisfy a craving to create. To make something out of nothing, something that other people appreciate and that hopefully exists as something externally meaningful in their lives. Secondly, they create scenarios in which I am the master of my own destiny, architect of my own successes and failures (but mainly successes, is the hope.) Thirdly, they allow me a reason to create a physical space, be it a workshop, a soap station, or a writing den, that is mine, and called into existence for a very specific purpose, a purpose that would serve both my creative drives and my need to earn a living.

I just love the thought of it. Of waking up every morning, and, after a lazy breakfast with Kate, retiring to my office to work on my novel. Or heading into my wood shop to work on a desk, or a table, or some other useful, beautiful object. In my fantasies I'm fulfilled. Ultimately so, happy to meander around the routine I've built for myself and enjoy the spoils of a life geared towards the creation of objects of meaningful permanence.

How does one create such an existence? And do I have the talent for any of it? Those questions are central to the struggle, and the main reasons that my myriad fantasies have remained just that.

But I know that's what I want from life. I've been doggedly dreaming of it for too long for it to be a passing fancy.

It's the doing of it that's difficult.

Woodworking...as a Concept

I love the idea of woodworking.  Taking rough-hewn planks and transforming them into furniture.  Creating something lasting from something inherently fleeting.  We go to the Amish market for lunch occasionally, and I'm always flabbergasted by what these guys can do with a tree.  One day I'd like to be able to do that.  One day I'd like a fully tricked out wood shop where I can try and make the same sort of magic.

I watch Norm Abram on The New Yankee Workshop occasionally.  This guy is a freaking genius.  If he were a filmmaker, he'd be Stephen Spielberg.  If he were an architect, he'd be Frank Lloyd Wright.  If he were a 70's prog rock band, he'd be Yes.  And I think we know what sort of hot chocolate he'd be.

Each show he goes to some antique center, studies an old piece of furniture, and then comes back to the shop and builds a perfect replica.  Like it was nothing.  Not that he makes it look easy.  It's actually very hard to follow him because he takes something difficult and makes you understand just how intricate and complicated it is.  But watching the process, and seeing what comes out the other end, is almost mystical.

That's why I say I love woodworking as a concept.  I've never had the opportunity to try it, apart from studding out a wall.  But I suspect that if I ever had the space, the time, and the money to put a shop together, I would fall pretty deeply in love with woodworking as a hobby.