Why I Demonstrate and...

...It's Outreaching We All Need

This past weekend I demonstrated woodworking at an event supporting National Social Enterprise Day in Abingdon for its local host Oxford Wood Recycling. It was a splendid couple of hours, especially for me, because it's mostly about outreach. This presentation was without to much pressure because of the work OWR did to allow my focus to be doing my favourite thing in introducing people to the craft of real woodworking. The event was very local; Brits don't like to travel too far I have found.  For me it was only a mile door to door.

In Abingdon no one knows much about me or what I do. Being unknown this time meant little expectation from any except the people who came who know me from my blog and woodworkingmasterclasses or social media like Youtube and FaceBook. I loved being able to spend time chatting to everyone but then, additionally, getting with the local visitors who simply stumbled in on the event mid-demonstration. They watched, listened and really could connect with all that we were doing too, so they seemed to love the connections we made through hand work that they had never seen before in their lives.

The people were from very mixed and diverse backgrounds as in Europe and the middle east as well as Britain. In many ways that makes the dynamic of demonstrating quite different for me because in fact they knew very little about working with wood the way I do it and so our campaign towards real woodworking using workbenches and hand tools seems very different to what they watch on TV or through YT channels.

I cut dovetails and dadoes and planed surfaces with a #4 Stanley bench plane and they couldn't believe what they saw. Those that did know of me and follow my work enjoyed watching the faces of the other group as they passed the hand planed wood around from one to another. You have to understand—this is why I do some of the things I do. Whereas this latter group did indeed stumble upon us, you watched their faces as their fingers traced the surface of a hand-planed piece of wood for the first time ever and you visibly saw eyes widen and smiles spread as they realised for the first time what sharp planes are to a craftsman in achieving good results; that a dovetail joint can actually fit perfectly from a dozen or so sawn cuts with no further fitting or indeed any chisel work.

Where Have the Mentoring Craftsmen Gone?

Of course this happened for me the first time I worked with a skilled craftsman on the opening day of my apprenticeship. A mortise and tenon joint with stepped shoulders seated before my very eyes and I thought this man could pull rabbits out of a hat! From that minute forward he had me eating out of his hand and every time he said, "Sweep the floor." or "Brew me some tea, Lad," I jumped to it with hesitating. Respect often accompanies admiration and I admired my mentoring craftsman for as long as I was working under him and still respect the men who I served to this day.

Mentorship with Craftsmen

Over recent years I look back on life and realise that though we never called them that, men mentored, and they did it willingly and openly without any title. They were from an era where mentoring craftsmen simply assumed that as a responsibility from the lives they lived at work. I hadn't realised that that's what they were doing and neither did they. They fed me work that I developed through and ultimately it was these men that apprenticed me not the owners of the business who I think saw me and other apprentices and indeed the men working for them more as units or even chattels when I think about it.

My Work Today

My work today is the outcome of a very rich life as a maker people from long ago invested in that came by and through the discipline of mentoring. It was a strategy inscribed in the hearts of artisans; the men and women of the era who worked as masters of their crafts. It was not an odd hour a week but minute by minute interaction where warts were worked out in my character on the one side and the development of skill was being nurtured and fostered until I emerged as a skilled man working with my hands. It was not just me  becoming skilled with tools and wood though. Through my apprenticing and mentoring I grew into relationships that built my character. How could I ever be anything other than grateful for the input I received? How could ever not pass it on?