Dear Good Hours,
I’ve been blogging and writing about my creative work since June of 2009 and thought I’ve tried to resist, the idea is too good not to steal. Chris Schwarz over at “The American Peasant” regularly re-posts things with updates and commentary in a series he calls Earlywood. I’ve decided to go more “action hero” and call it “Evolution” because its a cool word and because at this point in my maker-life, it really feels like I’ve undergone that.
This post was written on my blog at Oldwolfworkshop.com back in December of 2009.
*****
THE WOOD SHOP JR.
Well as explained before, my family and I have again moved back to Wisconsin, It's good to be home, I don't believe we ever should have left, but what do I know. anyhow.
(We’d moved to Maine following a promising job lead for me. We’d drove out just after Christmas 2008 and watched the economy collapse during the three days of travel to our new home. Lots of promises were broken at the job I took, and Naomi couldn’t find any work of her own. We floundered and finally made the decision after 8 months to cut and run back to Wisconsin.
The decision hurt us both financially and socially. Nothings ever been the same after we came back. The world changes you I guess. It still shakes me that there was no quiver from my gut intuition that we were making a poor decision. At this point of the blog, we are drowning in poverty, starving on food stamps and working horrid, low end, telephone customer service jobs for Verizon just to feed our kids. They were the only jobs available, and I had to lie and charm the shit out of the lady who interviewed me so she wouldn’t pass me as “overqualified”
It’s weird that I can read in this post the humiliation and the desperation covered over with a veneer of bravado. I’d just decided I was going to overcome my desperation by focusing on this blog. I knew you get better at things by doing them, especially if you do them publicly, and I was determined to get better at writing and develop a “voice” whatever that is, I still don’t know.)
We now reside in a small 2 bedroom upstairs of a duplex. Not a whole lot of room to move around at all, and no space for a real shop, The only saving grace for my sanity...I mean my hobby (could be insanity just as easy I guess) is a small almost 5 by almost 9 space at the bottom landing. It is here I have settled the shop for the time being.
(This shop space, as small as it was, and all the other social / financial things we were struggling with, was where I made the choice to invest myself in hand tool woodworking as a viable path. I didn’t have room for anything else. Along with that paradigm shift in thinking I stopped wanting to be Norm Abram, and I started to read a whole lot more from this weird, but supremely down to earth guy who was working for Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine at the time. The reason I’m on Substack now, Chris Schwarz.
My brain glommed on to him as a platonic ideal of “expression” knowing Chris a little now, I think he’d hate that moniker. He was probably bravely treading water himself at the time, but he gave me a lifeline when I was struggling through one of the lowest and toughest points of my life.
Thanks Chris. I’ve never had the chance - or the bravery to actually say that to you in person when we’ve been in the same place or the same room. You showed me a subtle silver string all my own, one that’s lead me this far through the wilderness.)
I have wanted to do more hand tool work anyhow, I thought...here's my opportunity... I have to say as far as efficiency goes everything is at reach, but as a matter of poor pity me, I miss my table saw and I really miss my workbench. The other than hand held power tools the only thing I made space for is my bench top band saw. Relegated to the floor when not in use.
I am proud of the construct I made for the woodworking vice, a 2x4 scrap and there you go. I secure it to the cabinet top with 4 screws when I need it and back the screws off to reposition or remove it completely. What I wanna work on now is a bench dog system with some wedged stops and maybe a Wonderpup (Veritas).
(I’m not sure why I didn’t show a pic of the “construct” after talking about it. It does show up later in the pics but not very well. I found this picture in the Archives that shows the weird little monstrosity a little better. Remember, hunger knows no flavor.
I never did work on that “bench dog system” but, as I think about it and smile at the history. This “bench” you see in these pics, started it’s life as a custom built cabinet for the front end of the Olive Garden in La Crosse WI. My father was a manager there, and when the “design’ changed he decided it was too nice to throw in a dumpster and took it home, where he eventually, around 2007, gave it to me.
It’s still in my shop. I use it in my “metal working” area of the shop. It holds my machinist vice and a great number of my hand held construction and power tools. It’s doors have been long lost to history, but you will see it soon as I have refilled and updated the shop and plan to shoot a “shop tour” video in the near future. Its been a while since I’ve done so. Please, if you care, comment your platform preference YouTube or Vimeo.)
(The hanging fruit basket of clamps cracks me up. It worked so well in my shops for so long. Looking at this pic I kinda miss it!)
Anyhow here are some pics of the new shop. We'll see what I can wrangle out of here.
(I’ll add one more pics from the file that I didn’t post before. It really shows how small this space was. December in Wisconsin, it was cold as hell too. The small heater I acquired later didn’t really help at all.
This miniscule workspace really is the birthplace of the Oldwolf Workshop and Derek Olson as a Maker/Writer and, you know what? Fuck it. Imma use the word. The start of my evolution into an artist.
There I said it. The word “Artist” and fuck you if you disagree. Dad always said I’d starve if I tried to be one, but guess what, it happened anyway and I’m a fat ass motherfucker!)
(Where it really started. God Damn,
And much love dad (and I miss you, wish you could read these letters)… I know you just wanted the best for me. A career, a family, food in the fridge and a roof over my head. I know it was a struggle for you sometimes. I know you ate shit sometimes so it would happen, so have I.
But I got there anyway. And I know you’re proud of me for listening to myself over anyone else, even you. Love you)
Love Derek
Ratione et Passiois