A view of my studio
and some stiff fish
It’s been a long, cold winter dear reader.
Creatively, I’ve felt as tapped as the maple trees in the sugar section down at the lake.
Maybe, if I’m lucky, something will start running soon.
I’ve been whittling fish a lot lately.
I mostly use a draw knife.
I like this.
It’s powerful and precise.
There are some places where it just doesn’t work.
I could get another tool, something eee lek trick-ly powered.
More tools, more capabilities, more possibilities.
But that’s the attraction to my old draw knife.
It will only do so much
And given this?
It can only get me in so much trouble.
Forged in Austria, it makes short work of the slab wood spruces I’m working with.
My studio?
It’s a small 10 x 12 shed.
All of my projects live there right now.
I’d like more space.
But it’s kinda like my drawknife.
The limits of my space allow me to be creative with what I’m working with.
The last little while, winter has been relaxing its grip on us.
I can now spend hours at a time in my studio.
It’s insulated and heats up pretty good once I ripping my fish into shape.
So, dear reader, I’d like to invite you to take a gander at my space.
I both hate it and I love it.
It’s too small and completely enough.
What restrictions can you impose on yourself in order to flourish?
Though the system only registers one like from me, I’m in for way more than that. The studio space, with everything that’s going on in there—the doll, degrees, the bike frame—is fantastic, but what I really love is the limited palette exercise that you’ve set for yourself with the knife. I see it as craft at human speed, with the slow, steady accumulation of well-earned lessons about the knife and the wood.