One of the things that happens when you have a mind hopping with ideas (and mine tends in that direction most times) is that you have a lot of projects going at the same time. In fact, I have no picture attached to this newsletter because, if you imagine a cellar filled to the brim with stuff, you will get an accurate view of both my mind and shop.
Often I have thought that I’d be a better craftsman (and businessman) if I developed some scheme of organization. I have a loose one which is to make a mental list each day of the projects I plan to make an advance on in that period in descending order of importance. That doesn’t tend to clean things up, though, because once a project is finished, I replace it with one or two more.
A further complication is that I tend to be a theoretical craftsman. I had a mathematics teacher in high school who said there were two branches of mathematics: theoretical and practical. The practical people were trying to make better and better shirts with two sleeves in each one. The theoretical contemplated shirts with less or more sleeves, no matter whether anyone could wear them. Much of the time I get interested in a project because I can develop a new skill through it or because it involves a design feature I want to see if I can replicate.
Top all this off with other things to do (wood gathering for heat, caring for my family, doing business paperwork stuff, fixing an aging house), and you can see the old calendar gets full fast. I’m not complaining, though, because new projects and the press at times of schedule bring out of me production levels I didn’t know I had. For that, I have to thank my family, friends, and customers. When I lack things to do, I’ll be, as Red Green said once, parked.
You can find Bourgeois Furniture at Berkeley Art Works (I’ll be sitting at this gallery from 11 to 4 on Saturday this week) in Martinsburg, WV, and Bent River Trading Company in Capon Bridge, WV.