Fall

I think the best thing I've written is a story called 'The Boxer and the Blonde.' It's a piece about Billy Conn, the white would-be heavyweight champion of the world, who lived in Pittsburgh. 

Frank Deford

I'm reading a book by Frank Deford, Everybody's All American and I can't recommend it enough. DeFord is a brilliant author, and while he is best known as a sportswriter, his fiction is amazing.

Just a few pictures of fall in mid coast Maine. 

Progress on the shop continues, as time allows. We did get one wall up today, hopefully the rest tomorrow. 

It's a post and beam construction so it should go up fairly quickly..

Chopping Block

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I recently picked up a felling ax at an antique shop and rehabbed it ( I'll do a post on that soon ) but here it is all fixed up.  The red handle serves no purpose but it does look sharp.

The shop pushed too close to a stand of maples and they had to come down. Despite their small size, there is enough clear maple for a few chair legs.

Firewood

Every man looks at his woodpile with a kind of affection

Thoreau


So....after a long absence and a geographic change, I'm soon going to be building a new chair shop in Southern Maine, near Brunswick, just north of Portland. 

This area has some of the best eateries 

And sunsets

And architecture you'll see anywhere. 

This is some of the wood I split and the left will be roughly the location of the shop, Can. Not. Wait. First project is nutcrackers for my daughters. 

So this happened

Here's an interview the Bangor Daily did about me. I tried to talk about not only chairs but also the nature of art and craftsmanship. 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1103360949739817&id=100001977660888

Seat

There are chapters in life that are never talked about, and certainly not aloud

Carol Shields, The Orange Fish




So long hiatus. Maybe someday I'll read that chapter aloud.  Just a few random pics of seat carving. It took me along time to learn how to turn, for some reason, then one day I realized I was. But for whatever reason carving seats came very quickly and easily. Some things in life come easily, some are hard. Usually the hard is worth it.