‘Adams Angling’ is my favorite catalog for thinking about planning an expedition The transition to fair weather from a long and gray, chilly wet season always has me dreaming about excursions to the wilder reaches of Northern California, testing my wits in the face of a more bare mode of survival. While it’s been years […]
Tag Archives: craft philosophy
Managing Craft, Crafting Management
I feel like Mr Hulot when I need to transition from studio craft to a business mode. In craft work, quality is the result of acting in a way to increase the likelihood of desired outcomes. A maker is an active agent in each step of the process of bringing something into being, where every […]
Shuffling the Tree
I can relate to the work style of a 1930’s American cabinet shop (public domain) After over a year of design development with the architect and client, selecting logs of deodar cedar and having them custom milled and cured to outfit the interior of a new guest house down the coast, I’m regaining perspective on […]
Authentic Inauthenticity
a simple bench made of packing crates reinforces the charming illusion of Chinatown Part of the allure of San Francisco’s Chinatown is that it was conceived as, and remains a study in authentic inauthenticity. Despite the fact that China has emerged as a global economic power, people from all over the world are drawn to […]
Balancing the Brain
At a certain scale, production woodwork requires a lot of time spent physically sorting and grading material, then processing it through a sequence of noisy machinery. It can be dull, monotonous work, but I still get a thrill watching grain patterns emerge and generally enjoy the physical labor as a kind of meditation. I find […]
Labor Me Vocat
Translated from the Latin, Labor Me Vocat is roughly, ‘duty calls’, an apt motto describing my current state of affairs. As is occasionally inevitable in a life of craftwork, my head and hands are now fully focused on realizing a string of challenging projects, and my posts on this site will be less frequent. ???? […]
Murphy’s Law Corollary
a sea lion briefly beached itself on Doran Beach this morning as we were walking by During our morning walk along Doran Beach, Ene and I were greeted by a friendly sea lion, who watched us from the surf before proceeding to briefly beach himself within yards of us as if to say hello. We’ve […]