After nurturing, caring for, and steering Issue Fourteen through its infancy and trouble-free adolescence, we are delighted to send it out the door and into the world. It’s ready. And while the development of an issue of M&T is a much more abbreviated (and infinitely easier) process than raising a child to adulthood, there are some similarities. I’ll try to unpack the metaphor through my own experiences in writing an article for a new issue.
An idea is carried around for a few months, developing, growing, changing, before it’s put down on paper (or in a Word doc). The writing process is intense, often necessitating several consecutive days blocked out for the task. It’s a tremendous relief to finish this step and to finally see the fruits of a long labor. But this is just the very beginning of the process. A fledgling article comes out messy, with loose ends and disjointed phrases and wandering arguments. The final draft you see in print sometimes bears little resemblance to this initial effort. But the parts are there; it just needs more help. Joshua and I exchange our articles at this point and get them into shape – more mature and disciplined, if you will. This can be tough on a writer’s ego, as some of the sentences or concepts you thought vital might end up on the chopping block. Growing up is hard, for sure.
Issue Fourteen, in particular, features several articles we’ve been long anticipating. Agnes Chang, one of our 2021 Craft Grant recipients, shares her trip to Taiwan where she met up with one of the last wooden-plane makers there. Ever since we first read Agnes’ application for the grant, we couldn’t wait to read what she was going to put together.
Douglas Brooks’ article about Japanese craft pedagogy had its roots in a conversation at the 2019 Lie-Nielsen Open House. We were super busy at our booth, and Douglas was swamped with folks interested in the boat he’d brought to display, but we were able to chat with him and learn some fascinating insights into Japanese handwork.
And Marshall Scheetz has written about making a coopered tankard, a topic we’ve been looking forward to since Joshua and I visited him in his home in Williamsburg, VA during the 2019 “Working Wood in the 18th Century” conference. Marshall showed us some incredibly beautiful coopered objects in his own collection, and we were thrilled about the prospect of an article on the topic…someday. Well, the day has come!
This is the last call to receive Issue Fourteen as part of a subscription. If you have a subscription, you’re all set (and the auto-renewing option means you never have to worry about that again). If you don’t have a subscription, you should purchase one by Monday the 27th. After that, all new subscriptions will begin with Issue Fifteen. If you’re not sure if your subscription is up to date, you can reach out to Grace at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com.
It's been a long time coming, but Issue Fourteen is nearly at the finish line.
-Mike