Looking forward & back

and forward again

looking downriver this morning

I’m pretty lucky. I don’t operate under deadlines. I’ve got to the point where I know there’s times when I’ll be doing a lot of work and other times, like this past week, when my shop-work is pretty limited. Eight years ago my friends and I built the shop as a bare-bones project - one aspect of which is there’s no insulation in the walls - just the frame and board-and-batten siding. Which means that this past week-plus when we’ve had such low temperatures I haven’t even bothered to light the stove and try to work out there. It’s just not worth the hassle. 

So I have a brettstuhl-video project that’s stalled a bit. I lit the fire this morning and in a little while I’ll get out there and prep some oak boards for the next few boxes I’m making in late February. And on & on - looking forward. 

But for the past few days, I’ve been at the desk, working on some drawings for my cupboard book that will go down to Jeff Lefkowitz and he’ll make them right.

drafts for cupboard book drawings

Then I turned to writing more of the text for the Craft Genealogy book. Which is the looking back part. I think I’ve mentioned that the major sources for information in this book are notes left by Jennie Alexander (1930-2018) and Daniel O’Hagan (1923-2000). Alexander’s are in the form of notebooks, most now housed in the Winterthur Museum and Gardens’ library, some in my own collection. O’Hagan’s are mostly a series of index cards, with some additional content from writings both published and unpublished. His family kindly gave me access to these works.