Making, creating, working with one’s hands, is a wonderous thing. An absolute requirement for being human, hugely satisfying, and I love it. Thing is, I am just as happy patching my old pair of army pants as I am working the finest wood – possibly more so, because I’ll not have cold wind blowing in at my knees anymore. Fixing clothing so that it lasts a bit longer is useful you see, of direct benefit to my day-to-day life. I wish I could find the same sense of neccessity in my woodwork… I’m sure I will one day, when it’s a matter of a table to eat at.
Through writing our lives, not only do we become clearer about them – an Important Thing – but other people can see what we’re on about. I used to take for granted (I still do in a lot of ways) that I think certain things, but it would seem that it’s not at all obvious to anyone else. I usally think ‘well, of course!’; now I’m writing this blog I’m beginning to see the error of that. I talk, but the ephemeral conversation is no good, it’s inaccurate and anyway, how’s one supposed to remember something only heard once?!
Over and again I am confronted with the need to live in such a way that is true to my soul, in all spheres. This is what I’m talking about when I say I no longer wish to compromise. If my homelife takes place, as it does now, on a stage of hard, shiny, polyurethane’d pine boards that give one no chance of ever touching the wood, why then worry about a desk that is fake-wood veneer? I should like none of these plasitc, too-perfect-to-be-bearable, mechanised finishes. Rather, plain wood, something that can be loved; if we can love something, it doesn’t matter what it is, but likewise if we can’t – so why insist on this poisonous mediocrity?! (You see how tiring I can be not admiting a place for compromise?)
The most perfect form for wood is the tree. Nothing that any woodworker ever makes will ever surpass it.
More Bachelard of a morning.