new moon, new year ... artists don't retire ...

so, i was sitting outside a while ago and it started to rain... i went inside and 

randomly picked up one of my 'blog to print' books ...  leafing through it

i came to the post below ... the chuck close thing below is relevant here..

chuck says that 'artists don't retire' ... 

i may have to rethink things, and declare Will's new shop 

just 'one of' my retirement projects! 

 

From January 1st, 2017 ....happy new year everyone!

as we head into 2017 and my 38th year of custom furniture making, 

i'd like to wish all of you a healthy and prosperous new year.  

we had a lovely holiday season here, and after one more day of rest tomorrow, 

we'll be back at it,

as i sometimes do on the new year, i'll leave you with a few thoughts that have 

been lurking around my brain for a while...
click the photos to enlarge them ... 

back in the 90s, for a while i kept a sketchbook/scrapbook.  it came to light a while back from a box in the cellar, and, while there's lots of (dated) stuff in there, i plan to put some effort into sorting 

through it this year.  

while it was living in my drawer this year, i stuck two clippings on the cover, one about lou reed and one on leonard cohen .. 

'i'd go there more often.' ... perfect! ... both are worthy of some further thought ..

as i fast approach the big 7 zero , i am sometimes asked if i will be retiring soon,

at the moment at least, i think not ... 

besides work and my day to day home life with kit and the boys, i seem to be making plenty 

of time for painting, pottery, golf, tennis, and paddle tennis. i don't sit still well ...

this year, i plan to teach myself to paint at least somewhat more realistically.

i am still in touch with and visiting with my painter friend horst, and though he has recently had a physical setback at 92, is still painting from time to time. i had the most lovely visit with him yesterday as i dropped off a book that i had made for him as a thank you for his 'teachings'.

and speaking of late stage, 

there was a recent article in the new york times magazine on chuck close
about the source of ideas and their relation to 'process' ...
it's a long one, and it concludes with some thoughts on 'late stage' work ..

you'll have click it to blow this one up to read it .. the gist of it .... 'artists don't retire' ... 

so, after some fine visits with friends both old and new over the holidays, stories swapped, both new and familiar, it kind of, for me at this point, boils down to mr. marquez's thought below ..

happy new year!

                                                                         20 minutes later .... 

on second thought, i leave you with a poem, 'Cosmolgy' by billy collins.

typically, i'm not inclined to read much poetry, but i like this one ...

Thoughts on mortality #2

above is a screen shot of the opening paragraph of a blog post from 2009 ..

 it is a bit of a story as to how i got to be reading that post recently, but here goes :

recently i was asked by a long time client/friend to make a box for her husband's ashes.

this is something i am  always honored to do, and i have made many of them ...

we went back and forth on the design and wood choice and settled on

the spalted maple you see above ... as it turned out, she plans to 

'go with him' and so, i eliminated the divider i had suggested in the original design.

the thought was that i could just 'double my regular box size' ...

but after doing a little research on 'cremains' i realized i could go a bit smaller ..

more or less final dimensions below ...  

these folks were longtime 'summer' clients, at their house here in dorset,

when they were not at their ranch near san marcos texas ...

we made many live edge pieces and a few 'outside the box' pieces 

involving burls, mirrors and antlers ... these folks were master collaborators ..

and always fun to work with ...

 

the note ... 

 

i leave you here with another part of the 2009 post  ...

from old st. pauls church, baltimore, 1692 ..

 

'gracefully surrender the things of youth'

....... 

'be careful. strive to be happy'

 

good advice a plenty there!
and below  

lookin back down the road ...

 in the early stage of my retirement now, one of my projects

has been to organize my 60+ sketchbooks from the past 50 years

so, a little history tour here ...

arranged now chronologically with important client's

names noted on the covers and spines 

                                        1999, the year was a good one with many important 

clients and interesting projects.

 

i have been reviewing these sketchbooks off and on now for a while

and i have accidentally created more than one album of photos

of some of the sketchbook  pages ... here's one album

here's another ... 'some of the best' 

there will definitely be some overlap

between the slide shows, but

there are many in each of them that 

aren't in the others ..

. 'good ones' 

 45 years is a long time!

here's another !

'early portfolio pictures' 

and then there's all the slideshows of  

'work from 2000X'

through 2023 ... i need to add one for 2024 ...

sometime ...
i leave you with a few words from the singer James McMurtry ...

he is always worth a listen ! 

 
 

 

Long Ago and Far Away

 Long Ago and Far Away

last summer, some long time friends closed their store in manchester

after 7 days a week for 38 years, and moved to an online version

at a newly constructed building at their house nearby.  

while visiting Grant after some Achilles tendon surgery

he and Betsy mentioned that  they felt that their new building was

'a little plain', and asked me 'what do you think?'

i had the same problem with a blank wall at my shop,

and over the years i have added some random elements

to 'spruce it up'

a piece of ash, left over from the curved benches

and a blade from a big crosscut saw ...

that seemed like enough, so i never added the cutter bar

that hung vertically off to the side there ...

i had some cherry on hand from a curved log i had sawed

about 10 or 15 years ago and, while i have some ideas,

i still have six or s even slabs left, plus another similar log.

we then did some noodling ...

and some mock ups

the pointy thing seemed 'not right' and they wanted to use the 'globe'

from the sign on their store ... i added the cutter bar ... BINGO!

 i went up Thursday and hung it up

 big hit!