Apprenticing simplicity - keep it simple

There is no doubt Sam has developed skills quickly over the 30 or so days he's been here. This week he’ll finish making his first workbench and he has his top laminated up, planed, cut to length and ready to go on the completed leg frames. All the time he meets any and all issues head on and seems undaunted. Because he first learned in our nine-day foundational course I have had nothing to undo in him. So far, too, he’s swept through a series of projects and tomorrow the bench should well stand on four legs. He’s gone for a near 6 footer by 30” wide top. Sam’s 5’10” he has had three heights to test out how he feels over 40 days overall that he’s been woodworking with us. For the first ten days he worked between two benches, one at 38” and the other 46”. Since then he has worked between 38” and 39 1/2”, but mostly he seems to be at 39 1/2”. He and I are the same height.

You know, I have apprenticed so many men and women this way and it really has worked for them and, in terms of my vision for artisan training, it works for me too.

Much of the time what I like is how incomparable  the apprentices have been since the 80’s when I started apprenticing people. No two are the same. I can remember every personality and watching them develop as they overcame struggles. I remember the laughs and the tears and the losses and the victories too. Living life off the conveyor belts means growing a lifestyle, living a lifestyle, finding greater contentment with less.