I stumbled on this shop at the Mystic Seaport Museum for the first time last year. It was October and early in the day and for some reason it was empty of people and full of tiny treasures.
Half my life ago I was a woodworker. My shop was in the basement of a log cabin. There was an annex of sorts, the back porch, which was covered. I kept the shaving horse and chopping stump out there for whittling the green wood down from log to chair parts. Sitting on that bench I had a private water view and families of wild creatures along the creek who shared their songs and dances and whispered dreams with me.
My father worked with wood. It was a hobby he did alone and also in basements. Growing up we moved a dozen times and I remember a long cardboard box held together by wide brown Allied moving van tape in which he carefully stored a wooden ship model kit. The Cuttysark.
It was off limits to his four wee children but once or twice I got to see him with an xacto knife trimming tiny parts and a tweezer pulling black thread through the blocks until he completed it and built a display case and brought it up to the dining room.
And I remember well the excitement, curiosity and wonder in his eyes when we visited Mystic for the first time. When I pause like this to think about it there are quite a few loves that we shared.
Maybe he is smiling somewhere reading this and seeing that I have my own long cardboard box and xacto knife with wee wooden bits of the Cuttysark waiting for me on the library shelf.
The first was from my Goddaughter Emily and her Wife Ashley who sent some snaps from Canada of their handsome son Oliver. We love getting to see photos of Ollie who is just the happiest little boy with a clever impish smile…can’t get enough of them. But this one was extra special.
First I have to take you back…way back…over 30 years ago…
I was living with Peter Follansbee in the general store in Muddy Creek Forks, where we were studying our respective crafts. He was the more serious woodworker and I the wannabe painter but we overlapped in the chair and basket department.
Along comes a visit from Emily, a very young version of Herself, and as I had begun making children’s ladderbacks…this one had her name on it…
I just love the confidence and pride in here expression there. Such a love.
So now we fast forward to this …
And now I’m melting into a thousand puddles.
You go Ollie…I hope to show you how to make one of those chairs some day. But that bucket of crayons is also right up my alley and down my street…I can’t wait to see what you do with those !
So I’m all warm and nostalgic thinking of the journey that chair and the chairmaker has made and then I get some pics from Follansbee himself.
Here’s a sketch of my basement woodworking shop in our log cabin which I made for Peter back in ’97
Can you find the pipe ?
The one on the door not on the top of the cabinet.
Yeah so he and I have differing memories, his story will appear later, but I cherished that as being one given to me by Peter and his mother Mary from his dad Mo’s collection. Peter says no, and I usually defer to his stellar skills in the memory department but I’ve held my ground long enough that he has capitulated…almost.
Long after I had made the move to fulfilling the dream of being a full time artist, our log cabin was caught in a massive flood. As we live 15 feet from the edge of a creek, it meant the entire basement was filled with water. Very little survived from that workshop but I took apart the tool chest and saved this door and carved a Mark Twain quote which was eminently applicable to Master Follansbee…
True to both our natures He took it one step further and then some…
He posted a blog that fleshes out the back story so I’ll copy it here and link it back to his website for those who want to read on.
But before I do it feels important to take stock of both of these milestones.
Reminders of that time in my life when my younger stronger body followed the whims of my woodnypmh muses are few and far between now. I made over 500 chairs. From Shaker style rockers, large and small, to dozens of children’s ladderbacks to full dining room sets of chairs complete with child sized highchairs.
It was always meant to be a way of making money so I could follow my true bliss and be an artist. Looking back, it certainly was a magical bridge. And now, I spend my days at the easel…making money so I can justify taking some time off to make spoons.
I’m content with all of it…
because I learned well
from the quote which was most often requested
to be carved in the slats of those chairs…
“The End is Nothing, the Road is All.” Willa Cather
Now here’s Peter’s side of things…(stolen directly from his blog…)
A week or two ago I got to a project that has lingered here for ages. The small panel in this door was made by my friend Heather Neill, way back when. The Mark Twain quote she incorporated in this panel is from the Autobiography, “My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.” When Heather & I met in 1982, I had just given up the notion of being a painter, and was concentrating on learning woodworking. She took up chairmaking after I showed her some of the steps involved. She probably made more chairs than me before she gave up chairmaking to concentrate on painting! https://heatherneill.com/
Hanging in my shop is a drawing Heather made for me in 1997; showing her chairmaking space when it was active. In this detail, note the cupboard door with the pipe door handle. (my camera was tilted, Heather’s chair is not squished…)
So for a long time, I’ve been thinking of how to incorporate her Twain-quote-panel in a new door. I have two cupboards near the back of the shop – one for axes, and the other for turning tools. I made the axe one first, and it got doors.
When I made the next one across the shop, I had run out of “extra” pine boards. So left it door-less til now. But now that I was going to all the trouble of making the door – I couldn’t leave it plain. In for a penny…
I made it with flush-fitting panels – because the Twain quote had no margin to speak of. Then decorated it.
I haven’t carved pine since I carved the timber frame of the shop. I decided to use something simple & quick. This braid is featured in the book I did with Lost Art Press – this time there’s no V-tool involved, just incised marks with different-sized gouges. The layout is done w two compasses.
In this example, the large circle is 2 1/2? wide, the smaller one 3/4? – I used a 1? wide #5 Swiss-made gouge, and a 3/8? wide #7 Stubai gouge. Then a nearly-flat tool to remove some chips.
This is the dramatic view down the line.
This sort of design is common all over the place. My photos from Sweden a few years ago include a few different versions of it. Notice on this arch the way the effect changes according to the relationship between the large & small circles.
One more – again in an arch, but this time with its columns also.
But in the end, I decided to hollow the circles – the scribed design was as prominent as the carved one – and I didn’t like it. I took a large gouge and worked along each band of the circles. This gives the whole thing more shadow.
My version is simpler, too much blank space between the elements. But it will do, although I can’t wait to try it again.
Oh, I forgot about the pipe – why is that there? Heather swears it was one of my father’s, that my mother & I gave to her, no doubt as painting & drawing props. I swear I don’t recognize it. But my father had lots of pipes…so I might as well believe it.
I’d much rather be sitting next to him on a bench carving spoons, but this promises to be a classic tutorial and I know he’s been practicing so mine’s in the mail.
Here’s the link to his website where there is a video preview. Click Here
Be prepared…if you go down this road you will have more fun than a human ought to have and you will never need another session of therapy or artificial mood enhancer.
While you are on his site, which he has just updated, there are tons of other Follansbee items of interest including other videos, his workshop schedule and some of his very own spoons and other woodworking projects for sale.
It doesn’t get any better than that.
Please share with your friends, woodworking pals and otherwise.
While on Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month, we had the great pleasure of spending a day with our favorite little shavers, Rose and Daniel, and their groovy grey haired parents Maureen and Peter. Hanging with the Follansbee family is just about the most fun a person can have and I’m still smiling…
Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
Rose and Daniel display their pumpkin art at the Granary Gallery
Looking back on these pictures prompted me to check out Peter’s Blog and I see that his latest video is out. This will make a great holiday gift for the woodworker in your life and I’m gonna have a blast watching him make shavings.
Here’s a link to his website information about the DVD…http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/joined-chest-dvd-now-available/ and while you are there check out the spoons that he is now selling. As my readers know, every time he even mentions spoons in his blog or on the phone or sitting on my studio porch… I have to get out the hatchet.
Today is no exception and if this keeps up I just may have a few of my own to offer up for sale here on my blog soon.
Now THIS is something to stand up and cheer about. My friend Peter, who is already a rock star in the woodworking world…and the most famous 17th Century Joiner in the world…has a video out wherein he demonstrates 17th Century New England Carving.
I haven’t even seen it yet and I know it is a must see…must have for anyone that puts tool to wood.
It is available on the Lie-Nielsen website right now… Order DVD
Spread the word far and wide to all your woodworking pals … it’s a the best stocking gift going !
