I think there are two kinds of woodworkers. One the one hand there are those that would see a towering, ancient specimen of oak, maple, or redwood in a forest and immediately think about happily chopping it down right then and there and all the things that spectacular wood could be transformed into. And, on the other hand, there are those that would see the same tree, understand all of the things out of which that spectacular wood could be transformed, and be sad at that prospect at the same time.

This is, of course, a value judgement, but I don’t like the former mode of perception. It seems rather all too human. The commoditization of everything. An exercise in exerting one’s big-brained ego-centric ways over all manner of animate or inanimate object in a search or quest for…something? 

I say this after spending a recent week in the Adirondak region of upstate New York, hiking and walking and doing other various outdoor mountain air activities.

I saw up close and from a distance LOTS of trees. I walked immediately in front of, over, around, and past A LOT of trees. Big and small. Oak, maple, birch, beech, spruce, hemlock, pine – who knows what else. Some of it old growth. Most of it newer. Most of them were upright. Some of them horizontal on the forest floor slowly becoming something else, becoming a home for something else without meddling outside of what mother nature does quite well of her own accord. Nature’s own prefabricated, perfectly designed new block of flats for its varied tenants. 

I don’t think I once thought about making something out of any of those trees. Not once. Granted, a lot of the time was spent catching my breath climbing over rocks and boulders on the way up and making sure not to need a med evac on the way down, but still…

I’m wondering if the experience will have some kind of influence down the road – on things made or not made, materials chosen or not, and why. I don’t know. This is BY FAR not my first time in the woods, surrounded by rock, tree, water, earth, air, moss, black flies. Not even close. Not even the first time in that particular part of the planet. 

But it felt different for some reason this time and I’m not exactly sure why. So, I think this piece is really a first attempt at processing all that. How can one’s experience in and around the raw, quite living materials out of which one eventually creates things change one’s perspective or perception or relationship because of sustained, close proximity or time or other sensual experience?

Here’s a juxtaposition or bit of worlds colliding… walking through an old growth forest with all its constituents, smells, tactile experiences, and the like; and walking through your local sawmill picking out the perfect dried boards for the next project. In the forest, in and among the trees, I didn’t think once about a crooked tree being some kind of defective product to avoid. A rotting trunk of immense girth wasn’t a wasted opportunity, nor one with a bunch of low branches portending knots. That way of seeing ceases to make much sense in that context. The way of seeing, I think, is more akin to what a photographer or painter would be looking at or for. But, then take a trip to the mill and the script flips. Same essential material, but now one’s perception has rotated 180 degrees. There, it’s all about the defects and avoidance thereof, the color, size or cost. Maybe that’s the way it should be, always looking for the “good” board that won’t cause too much trouble. But then again, perhaps not.

So, back to the beginning. Perhaps there are not “two” kinds of woodworkers in the sense in which was originally proposed. Perhaps it’s just a matter of different contextually driven modes of perception. Perhaps, for some, to be a woodworker, is a matter of necessarily living within an unresolvable contradiction.

Then again, all of this could be a dream or hallucination after having smashed my head into a tree limb on the way down Ampersand mountain trail. Who’s to say kids, who’s to say.