Do I have rules in the shop? A few. No dancing. And definitely no sneaking up on me when I’m at the table saw wearing hearing protection. The first is irritating; the second could end badly for both of us. These rules aren’t carved into walnut plaques or hung in frames on the wall (which I would purchase from Ikea, naturally) but they are there, slightly below the surface, like a shark, waiting to pounce. [Wait. Do/can sharks pounce? That’s more a cat thing. What do sharks do if not pounce on their prey? I can’t find the right word for some reason. It’s more like a silent lurking in the depths, a rush, and then chomp! I bet the German’s have a word for that. They have words for everything like that. I should know. I studied German.]

That’s the nature of working with wood, or with any craft, art, or creative endeavor, really. Certain ways of thinking become ingrained. Some are practical, like checking grain direction before jointing or planing a board. Others are harder to name. More wiggly; I think they are derived from repetition, attention, and mistakes. The longer you spend with your tools and chosen medium, the more you realize you’ve been building a personal philosophy all along, whether you meant to or not, whether you documented it or not, or articulated for the first time in a blog post like this.

I’ve always been pulled toward making things. Before woodworking, it was (still is) photography. Before that (and still) writing. And even earlier, philosophy, which I studied at the University of Pittsburgh. That study left a mark (get it?). Philosophy may seem distant from woodworking or just life in general, but it gave me a way of approaching problems: break them down, consider multiple solutions, and accept that there is rarely one right answer. In the shop, that translates to a constant internal debate; cut a joint by hand or with the router? Glue up tonight or wait for the wood to settle? Or seven other kinds of what have you.

Outside the shop, I write about medicine and biomedical research. It’s mentally-demanding work that requires precision, clarity, and focus, particularly because I’m not a trained scientist or doctor, and that stuff gets real dense real fast. But it’s also the kind of mental grind that makes woodworking feel like rest. I read somewhere recently in an article I forgot to bookmark that people who work with their minds rest with their hands, and that line has stayed with me. Planing a rough board or fitting a joint isn’t just an act of productivity or busy work, it’s rather restorative, a way of resetting my brain by asking my hands to take over. A tonic for the soul, if you will.

None of this comes about from formal training. I’ve never apprenticed in a woodworking or cabinet maker’s shop or formally studied writing for that matter, or photography. I’ve learned as I’ve gone, mostly by trying and failing and lots of reading. Untold amounts of reading. You can learn or teach yourself anything if you commit to putting in the time and effort required (varies by individual). That’s not original thinking on my part. You can find that sentiment expressed by a number of folks.

The list of mistakes is long: a table that racked because I got sloppy, a cabinet door that twisted because I ignored grain orientation. Each one cost me time, sometimes materials, and usually a few choice words, but each mistake taught me something I couldn’t have learned from a book, more or less.

That, more than anything, is why I think this blog now exists and I hope will for some time to come. It’s not just a place to showcase finished projects or try to get you to cough up some scratch for something real nice, though you’ll see some of those. It’s a place to trace a process, to think about design, and to share the small philosophies that accumulate through practice. Sometimes the posts will be practical, sometimes reflective, sometimes both. Sometimes just for my own entertainment. Or yours, if you will. My hope is that you’ll get a sense of how I approach the work and maybe find something here that resonates with your own way of thinking and the things you may be looking for made out of dead trees, or otherwise.

At the very least, you’ll get an honest account of what happens when curiosity meets stubbornness and the will to overcome one’s own limitations in a workshop full of sharp tools, heavy boards, and a willingness to put it all down on paper for the world’s unmerciful gaze.