I decided to put together this little blog to keep track of and share the wood related projects that I’m throwing myself into these days. I make no promises with respect to frequency or quality, given I expect few people to be reading this with any regularity. I imagine most hits will be coming from me pulling up the site on other people’s computers to talk about some picture I took.
Despite having the domain name purchased and WordPress installed, it has been a few weeks and I haven’t done anything besides leave up the “Hello, World” post. I finally tripped across a sufficiently interesting idea for how to kick off this blog. Tom Iovino posted a question (both on his blog and on the WoodWhisperer forums) – “Who have been the three most influential woodworkers who got you started woodworking?”
I’m not sure I have a good answer to that question. At least, I don’t have three names to list. Until most recently, I really hadn’t done much with wood. I had a few pinewood derby cars and I’m pretty sure I also built a birdhouse in Cub Scouts. I’ve felled and split wood destined for a fire pit. One spring break in college I helped start building cabins at a summer camp, although we didn’t get much past the framing, given the weather in March in the foothils of Colorado. I guess that all adds up to a lot more than I thought before I started writing this paragraph…
I’ve always had a can-do attitude about most things. The recent popularity of HGTV and DIY Network have certainly boosted this consumer’s D-I-Y genes. Wood just seemed like another things I could do myself. Maybe its the combination of the creative and the technical. Maybe its the smell of sawdust. Maybe I can’t describe it in words. But I do know that I love wood and wood furniture. With the execption of some bar stools that belly up to a high kitchen counter, every piece of furniture in our house is wood. It’s warm, colorful, and inviting. I probably have my mother to thank for those sentiments. I know she shares the same feelings about furniture. Growing up I always used to give her a hard time about which $300 piece of wood she was going to buy next, as if it was some sort of vice.
I guess that now I’m addicted too…
Wow, man, I’m flattered to have been part of the inspiration!
Norm was – by far – the biggest influence for woodworkers in my poll. Norm won by a mile. That leads me to believe that due to the popularity of the NYW, the woodworking world really owes a lot to his Normness…
Think of the amount of growth that has taken place in the woodworking community since NYW hit the airwaves back in the late 1980′s… It’s been an explosion in the craft.
Let’s keep the dialogue going! We can keep providing inspiration to other up and coming woodworkers….