Make Life Changes in Working Wood

Time at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

I poised the lens of my newest camera within 9” of the most well preserved and valuable pieces of workmanship ever produced in wood. It was made 300 years ago to become one of if not the most well made violins ever made. Some might see its wealth in its saleable value at auction but of course its real worth is that it represented the life and lifestyle of a lifestyle instrument maker who worked to carve voices from wood. This alone impresses me beyond measure. The base price of this masterpiece violin? Start somewhere around £10,000,000 and then expect to pay much more. It will never be sold again. The “Messiah” stands isolated and encased from all other instruments. The case allows people like me to circle the instrument 360-degrees and to see detail we never saw the like of before. Surrounded by many stringed instruments, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts and grandparents, the Messiah stands exclusive, yet the hope of its maker was the honour of sharing its own unique voice in the presence of many sympathetic strings. When you understand this, you that such isolation is rarity itself. Working wood in isolation is often enjoyed and I enjoy this from time to time, perhaps a few days apart, a week or a month, but the greatest joy is when makers work alongside one another, together, and with the common cause of restoring the craft to its former fulness for creative artisans to take back the real power of real woodworking. that’s what I believe in you see. Hand work with hand tools isn’t primitive, old fashioned, nostalgic, reenacted fantasy. The Messiah had a purpose and so too the preservation of this instrument. You see, thankfully, no machine, no router or power sander, no power carver will ever produce what a man did 300 years ago with a handful of hand tools. Just think about what we are doing; not just doing, changing and transforming. Did you know that this month we will reach nearly 1,000,000 if not more woodworkers worldwide with a message of long-needed change and every month this number increases as people change the ways they work wood and find the ever-deepening realms, spheres if you will, of real woodworking. The Middle One is a Strad Guitar

I wonder which ones of you will pursue your interest to become another Antonio Stradivarius? Who will make an instrument from pieces of spruce and maple or a guitar the like of which there is no other? I am pretty sure of one thing, and you can demonise me as a Luddite, it’s unlikely to be work with a computer numerical controlled because it’s not a man or a woman that creates the actual work but a machine. As we rebuild the future and restore the lost realms that defy the flawed concepts of machine-only woodworking we will wee new things emerge. Go on, develop real skill, you owe it to the future. Imagine your first new boat, a kayak, a piece for the White House that starts with a sketch on a pad as you sit one Tuesday afternoon in a recliner and you stand inside the Cabinet Room with your mates having your picture taken. Undo the damage and master skill. At the very worst you’ll enjoy working wood like never before and we will be backing you all the way.

For more on the above instruments go to Ashmolean Museum.