Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Hand Tool Haven, just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. This gathering of tool makers and vendors is a fundraiser for Plane Wellness, a nonprofit that offers woodworking classes to individuals with mental health diagnoses and veterans.
Social interactions drain my battery pretty fast. And I tend to be a shop troll these days, sending employees to run errands and only putting fuel in my truck once a month. I really only leave to take my daughter out or to pop by the sawmill or logging site. But seeing friends and catching up with people I love is refreshing.
It was good to see many of you, I felt like there was a line of faces waiting to talk to me all day, many I recognized or recognized the name, and just hadn’t known which face it belonged to yet.
Whenever I’m in these environments, I’m starkly aware of the sea of talent present. I spoke to everything from a central asian stringed instrument luthier to someone who had only ever made a single cutting board. I find myself mentally swinging back and forth from wholly inadequate to insatiable curiosity to holding myself back from info dumping on someone who is asking for real advice in an area I’m qualified to give it.
One narrative that tends to pop up in these environments that I’ve been dwelling on is something like “I’ve been woodworking for 35 years”. It’s posturing, a way that we as humans try and stake out credibility in that sea of talent. It’s also complete rubbish, and we should truly try to scrub it from our conversations at least in the posturing context. It really has no connection to the value we bring to the table. It’s really only a marker of the time spent around the community and a way to make others feel inadequate. Age really has nothing to do with one’s credibility either. A mentor of mine Jeff, started seriously woodworking at the same time I did. He was in his 50s I was in middle school. And while I consider him my better, there are plenty of times he’s come to me for input on a project.
Our success in this craft has little to do with reputation or credibility but everything to do with what we can offer to others. Through that, we learn how much we really don’t know and how much more this craft holds for us to discover. My high schooler niece, who teaches sloyd to children, is truly doing more for the craft than the gentleman who constantly reminds me he shook James Krenov’s hand one time in 1989. So if there is ever a takeaway for me from these gatherings, it is that we should always welcome new people to the craft.
All true. I feel the conversation should never be about how long we have done something, but perhaps be around kinship, camaraderie, and the connection and love of the craft. It’s a long path that can take us to so many places and we are all in different places in the journey.
I love this post, thank you. I sense that as we create such openness and acceptance, our creative centers are allowed to flow more freely, whereas when we feel threatened by others posturing, our creative flow becomes blocked.