Playing 'What if?'

Bench in the basement prior to shop construction

Paul Sellers, of whom I spoke, in an earlier entry writes a regular blog. In the one that came today he mused about a contingent of young Danish apprentices who came to see him in his shop. As I've mentioned before, I admire Sellers' sense of reverence for his craft so I won't go into that again.

The track my thoughts took this time was more along the 'what if' line. It's a game I enjoy playing, not because I regret life choices I made, but because it's fun to imagine other alternatives and, looking back always gives a different perspective.

Looking back I realize that I had an apprenticeship in working with my hands from my mother. From the time I was very young we would sit together at a card table in the 'hobby room' and make things. Money was tight for my family and Mum subscribed to a magazine called Scrap Craft. In high school I took art and loved to make models. In theatre school I got to build models and props.

When I started to teach my focus became ideas and people rather than things. It was a productive career that has enabled me to now do what I truly love. As I look back I realize I was always finding projects, large folders of cardboard for student work, boxes where students could hand in and get back work, and various forms of a door stop for a classroom door that would not stay open when students were entering or leaving the class.

Some days I like to imagine myself in an apprenticeship program instead of a university classroom. Never mind that power tools scared the living daylights out of me and never mind that I work so slowly that I probably would have been kicked out in the first semester.  That's the beauty of playing 'what if.' I imagine myself surrounded by other people making things. I imagine teaching my hands and my eyes to work together so that I can make a perfectly straight, perfectly perpendicular cut with a hand saw almost every time I pick one up. I imagine making furniture, which is something I remember saying I wanted to do when I was very small.  Now I am bigger and my shop is small. Making furniture isn't a primary goal although I do have plans in my head for a headboard for our bed and a couple of stools for the shop.

I imagine being able to construct kitchen cabinets and intricate railings on stairs. I imagine myself in a job where I showered at the end of the day to get the sawdust out of my hair, instead of at the beginning of the day. In my imagination it is the perfect job and I love going to work every day. In reality, if I had taken that path I would be much more skilled by this point in my life but I doubt that I would enjoy woodworking any more now than I already do.  I am very fortunate to be able to heed Joseph Campbell's advice to, "Follow your bliss." Had I acknowledged my bliss earlier I would have spent more time there but that doesn't really matter. The only moment I can  live in is the present one and I'm delighted to fill so many present moments with fragrant wood, sharp tools and objects that please me when I finish making them. And, of course, I can always play a round of 'what if' when my hands are clumsy and the tools just don't seem to behave.

Here's a link to Sellers' blog should you be interested in reading it.
Apprenticing is alive in young Denmark