Live a quiet life and work with your hands

Daily inspiration. Tanamachi Studio

As a kid, I built balsa wood airplane models, scrapwood forts in the woods behind the house, and household woodworking projects with my father. My parents quickly saw my need for more structured creative outlets so they enrolled me in a sculpture class at 12 years old. I soon learned how to draw and paint and hand-letter. I learned how to pitch baseballs and juggle, made Christmas wreaths, painted houses during college, and started working at drafting tables and computers designing books, magazines, signage, logos, and marketing campaigns. In my free time, I always found time to repair and refinish antiques and to design and build furniture. Somewhere along the way, I combined my love of graphic design, woodworking, and antiques and began creating original, salvage-inspired sign art to hang in our home, and it wasn’t long before I started commissioning work for others.

As a homeowner (we are in our seventh house), there have been, and always will be, countless self-taught projects requiring my hands including framing and drywalling, old-school window glazing, custom built-ins, handmade cabinetry for bedrooms, bathrooms, and home offices, garden fences and arbors for climbing roses, tree pruning (arguably the truest test of one’s design sense) and lending my hands in the garden at the direction of my artistic wife Julie. And now, fifty-plus years after that first sculpture class, I am carving whales — very large whales — and this will keep my hands busy for a while.

My hands are usually a mess. They crack and bleed and now arthritis is setting in. I can’t get my favorite rings on my fingers anymore and my wedding band is a permanent fixture. But it is all worth it isn’t it, as it is through my hands that life is so thoroughly enjoyed.

Why working with our hands gives us meaning

“Making things with our hands centers us. The simple act of doing it—of getting lost in it, of shutting everything out until we look up again and realize time has passed—is as close as some of us ever get to that feeling of inner peace.”

From “A Craftsman’s Legacy—Why Working With Our Hands Gives Us Meaning” by Eric Gorges, 2019, Algonquin Books.

Amen, brother! This passage pretty much nails it, as do countless other passages in this book gifted to me by my wife Julie. Craftsmen of all persuasions explain why working with their hands gives their lives purpose. I wondered why I felt the need to be in the workshop. I’m happier when I’m out there working with my hands, but why is that?

I have a need to work through creative challenges on a daily basis. Seriously, no sitting idle here. When I’m deep into a project in the workshop, I get lost for hours on end. So much so, that I too detach from everything else around me, and it is in this realm—this state of mind—where I reconfirm one of my steadfast truths: I am meant to work with my hands. I know this for certain, as I can feel it deep in my bones.

What is this when you get so lost in something, lose sense of time, and feel incredibly centered? This phenomenon is known as “flow.” Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s book “Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience” (Harper Perennial, 1990) digs deep into this centuries-old curiosity and is the definitive research on these inner experiences that seem to make all the difference in our lives. I read this book 20 years ago and I connected with it immediately. It was a total game-changer in how I choose to spend my time.

Author Eric Gorges tells a gripping story about how he walked away from his soul-crushing corporate career after a spiraling crisis of depression and self doubt led him to the brink of death, an experience that changed him forever. My takeaway? Life is just too damn short. Listen to your gut, find your calling and live it.

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Inspiration: Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers

DrWhitesChest.jpg

Besides my wife, there are very few things that I can say are a sight for sore eyes. Thos. Moser’s ridiculously elegant interpretation of a Shaker classic puts me in a trance every time I see it pictured in their catalog (I find myself wiping away tears). This past summer, I grabbed this photo of the real deal while visiting the Moser furniture showroom in Freeport, Me. After 15 minutes of absorbing every inch of this piece inside and out, my wife finally grabbed my arm to pull me away. Nooo!

I’ve been tearing up over Tom Moser’s work for more than three decades now. I have all the furniture books written by Tom Moser, I’ve made the pilgrimage to his Auburn, Me. workshop three times, I’ve built a roomful of tables from his published shop drawings, took part in his company’s recent marketing research study, and my mother still sends old-school news clippings in the mail when the Portland paper writes another Thos. Moser story.

So, here’s to Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers for providing me with years of endless inspiration for new endeavors in the workshop.

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Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers

Dr. White’s chest by Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers

Dr. White’s chest by Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers

Dimensional lettering and smalt paint

  

3/4" thick pine letters hand cut with a bandsaw and jigsaw.

Letters rounded over with a radius bit and a sharp chisel for the corners.

This sign was a departure from what we normally do here at the workshop. We opted for hand-cut dimensional lettering and a smalted-paint background inspired by signs from the late 1800s and early 1900s. This project has all the authentic character and size of an architectural salvage piece, and we couldn’t be happier with the results. At ten feet long, this sign would look great in a home, restaurant, pub, or office lobby. 

Final sign — ten feet long. Click photos to enlarge.

Photoshop mockup. The bevel tool helped in considering the amount of roundover for the lettering.

Full-size template used to mark letter spacing.

After assembly.

Our smalt paint recipe is simply a thick coat of wet black paint with sand sifted over it. As the paint dries, the sand becomes embedded into the surface. Commercial shop smalt recipes use pigmented glass granuals or colored sand set into a thick “smalt cream” that sets up like an epoxy, permanently setting the “smalts” to make an armor-like finish. Mostly used for high-end signs paired with gilded lettering, glass smalts provide a glittery finish and are available in various granual sizes.