After we rived enough parts for two chairs, Kenneth opened a tool chest full of drawknives and I used a half-dozen different styles to begin refining the riven parts. Kenneth had spent many hours with these tools. He had no trouble using any of them, but knew the ones that fit his body best. I had the freedom to switch back and forth between drawknives, finding those that felt most natural to my hand and comparing them to the only drawknife I had used, an antique from my grandfather’s farm. Kenneth noticed that the handles of my grandfather’s knife had been bent out of parallel, so we spent the last part of the afternoon removing the wooden handles, heating up...
Most 21st-century woodworkers are self-taught, solitary creatives. They might have taken a class or two in the early days, but the vast majority of their projects are undertaken without the benefit of a shop mate. For the more reclusively inclined, this kind of isolation is in fact one of the major selling points of the hobby, but it cannot be denied that self-guided education has its drawbacks. I suspect many of my readers have picked up tips or learned entire new crafts through videos, books, or articles. We moderns live with an embarrassment of educational riches at our fingertips. At the same time, if we’re not careful, this à la carte approach can produce imbalance and underdevelopment. It’s easy for...
A genuine love of wood needs to be both practical and personal. It is necessary for the studio because of the kind of paint used to create the icons. Like so much of what is done here, the paint used is locally produced and looks to fulfill the land rather than extract from it. It is called egg tempera, a combination of pigments made from the rocks and plants around the studio and egg yolk from our little flock of chickens. When properly prepared and applied, it is a durable paint that does not yellow and gives luminosity to the color. However, once cured, it dries to an inflexible state that would quickly crack and flake off a flexible surface,...
