two art objects from the workshop

[Whenever friend Reg enters my shop I can almost guarantee the first words out of his mouth will be about how wonderful the place smells - especially after I've cut up a bit of western cedar.] 

The smell of freshly cut or sanded lumber often hangs in the air inside my shop. It's one of the perks, I say. But the shop is full of other surprises too, and I'm glad I usually carry a camera in my back pocket.

[A recent project; 'history in a box']

[Another recent art object: 'paint in a pail']

Yes, paint in a pail. Surprise!

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read 'a robin's view of a busy fly zone'

Please click any of the labels for an exciting find.

the wedgie - hammer 4

great hammer, and the box for it is almost done.

just have to add one sentence (not my own) to this piece of 'history in a box'.

photos by gah

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Please click here to read more about 'hammer 4'

history in a box: hammer 4

I didn't think there would be a 'hammer 4'. At least not so soon after completing three shadow boxes for   a set of hard working ball peens.

However, a friend and neighbour saw one of my examples of 'history in a box' and soon thereafter visited my workshop with a hammer that once belonged to his grandfather. A lovely hammer it is too, in my opinion.

[What kind of hammer is this?"]

Two things about the hammer: First, I wasn't sure of the type so I googled images of tack hammers and found  one that was similar. At the image's original website [Retrotechnologist] I read the following with much interest. "What you see there is my Old Dependable hammer at the bottom (you don't get wood and metal those hues without using them for a long, long time) and above it, a couple of cross pein* (i.e., peen or pane) or Warrington-pattern hammers. Handiest small hammers I own. I've been using the larger of the two when fastening trim pieces to the window seat I'm working on; the smaller one (especially good for wire brads) is known to British woodworkers as a "telephone hammer" to this very day, supposedly because they were used to nail together the old wooden-type wall telephones, which were usually sent out as a kind of a kit, in order to take up less space on the installers wagon or bicycle." [Please link to Retrotechnologist: Hammers for more information]

Second. I spotted a few informative marks stamped into the metal head. E.g., the number 3, likely indicating the size. Gold Cast, likely indicating the maker. The word 'MILLE', in caps, barely visible, making me think the original owner was named Miller. My friend's wife agreed that her husband's grandfather was named Miller. Today I find out if he realized the name was on it. (I think it's a very cool find, if he didn't spot it).

Today I'm also wondering, will I one day have to add a wing to my shop, the 'Shadowbox Dept.'? I'm hoping I will because it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to drop history into a box, then see it, for example, on a wall or mantel.

Photo by GH

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Please click here to view 'hammer number 3'

Please click on any of the labels below for related matters.

Hammers 3 "out of the bag"

Many of us do not work at jobs that bear a close resemblance to the types of labour our fathers, mothers or grand-parents did. Not that we have it easier but we may have it hard or harder in different ways. Hammer 3 speaks to me about labour from a different time, a time when the marks of a person's work showed in the tools used. 

It speaks about hard work that won't necessarily hurt but will leave an occasional scar. It also says, "to move to the front put your back into your work" or words to that affect.

After finishing the shadowbox for Hammer 3 I let my mind turn to the next project and a few interesting things fell into my hands. More to follow.

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Please click here to read about Hammer 2, now "out of the bag"

favourite photo, favourite hammer

This hammer would last the lifetime of many a working man, even outlive most.

I bought if for five smackers (love at first sight) from an old fellow who sells tools - some from my hometown of Norwich - at Western Fair Market. It's a beaut, don't you think?

Photo by GH

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Please click here to read "Old money bags"

Please click labels below for more connections to 'who knows what'

Hammers 2 "out of the bag"

["Hammer 2 has a life and story of its own"]

A week or two ago, the first used hammer I purchased from a vendor told me quite a story when I rolled it in my hands and examined it closely inside my workshop. Something about "hard work doesn't hurt you, Gordie boy. It builds muscle, improves your appearance and, while you're busy on one project, it fosters creativity and leads you to a second, and more." The words inspired three projects, i.e., one shadow box for each hammer I purchased or have as extras in my shop. After Hammer 1 was resting securely inside a suitable shadowbox I started looking closely at Hammer 2.

["What a beauty," I thought]

What a big, heavy, well-worn, well-travelled beauty it is. After a few swings I knew that any workman who used it for even a few minutes would soon wear sweat upon his brow. The things it can build or repair are countless, but only with a worker behind it and the right hands upon it. Without human muscle, strength and energy multitudes of hammers will only sit idle upon work benches and gather dust.

["your strength and creativity enlivens a

simple hammer with power and production"]

I know, I'm busy building boxes for hammers, in which they will sit idle as 'retired hammers'. However, I think their future lives as story tellers will be as valuable a vocation as their past work.

What say you?

Photos by GAH

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Please click here to read 'Hammers 1 out of the bag'

Hammers 1 "out of the bag"

I'm going through a few changes of life at the same time. I'm getting older - one day at a time, sure, but with increasing awareness - and wake up with a few more aches after my weekly hockey game than when I was kid. I'm getting fussier. I'm trimming back my social calendar, among other things. And my workshop is slowly becoming more than 'Birdhouse Central'.

I still predominantly work on birdhouse projects (at present the shelves in the shop are full) but another line of combined work and pleasure is slowly developing. I'm at the first stage of what, in my opinion, is going to be a long, experimental, productive haul, and I already have a name for the journey. History in a box.

Like others, I find about my house many items - hard to let go of at times - I describe as part of my personal history. Photos, old letters, paintings, colourful (and wide!) polyester ties and various objects of deep, abiding and interesting interest. With the experience gained from making hundreds of birdhouses in the last decade, I'm starting to make solid shadow boxes into which I drop some of the aforementioned and meaningful bits of history, with a few words attached.

Certain objects tell their story through patina, wear marks, mars or damage, layers of dust. Observers are often left to guess, as well. For example, I would guess that Hammer 1 (in my collection) threw its weight around on many occasions in a shop or on a work bench older than I am. It likely hit many a nail right on the head or flattened dents in sheet metal. Its fine, clean, smooth handle and light weight was also likely instrumental in helping someone develop a bit of muscle and finish many important tasks for low pay. That being said, a workman, somewhere, likely felt he/she was worthy of the wage received. And so they were, I imagine, as most workmen are today.

["hard work builds muscle, improves your

appearance and fosters creativity"] 

More historic hammers to follow.

Photos by GH
   
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Please click here to read 'a bag of hammers 2'

a bag of hammers 2

The three hammers each had an individual feel and spoke of their own unique contribution to the world around us. The shadow boxes I constructed set them off well, in my opinion, and gave me an opportunity to say a word or two... on behalf of hard working hammers - and those that grip them firmly, with authority - everywhere.

["hard work builds muscle, improves your appearance

and fosters creativity"]

["your strength and creativity enlivens a simple

hammer with power and production"]

["in order to move to the front

put your back into your work"]

Modern technology has produced many gains in production and fosters human creativity, some would say more so than hammers. But there is much to be gained by being directly connected to one's work, even the building of a birdhouse or set of matching shelves. Jobs that produce a physical and mental sense in achievement as mind, muscle, hammer and nails work together are not to be sniffed at or abandoned. And if technology robs men and women of good work then we have set a fox among the hens.

So, keep a hammer handy. Keep your mind at work.

Photo by GH


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Please click here to read 'a bag of hammers 1'

"and the dish ran away with the spoon" 2

["Barn board from the Kawarthas for the shadowbox"]

This afternoon, under sunny skies, I cut four pieces of barn board for the frame of a shadowbox (for a friend). Shortly after putting the saw away, I sanded and assembled the frame. Easy kap-easy. Then the process got a little fussier.

Shadowboxes are, in chief, about the content, and in this case a spoon well over a century old, dug up recently by a six-inch auger. I thought, how can I display a smashed-up spoon? Out came thin wire and sharp snips, and before too long the spoon was securely attached to its two-layer platform.

Thanks to previous experience with shadowboxes, I soon wedded the platform and my friend's spoon to the ready frame.

["Text: Never want for another's spoon,

But hold on to your own spoon very carefully.

Jacob, (Holocaust) Survivor"] 

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read "the dish ran away with the spoon" 1

a bag of hammers

I own at least a dozen hammers, all well worn, with sturdy grips, and with hundreds of stories to tell if only that was possible. Stories about hard work, fruitless jobs, broken boards, bent nails, the pleasure in fine timber and stunning results.

["Heads and hands must do hard work together"]

Stories about the strong men that held them, bent backs, broken dreams, low wages but signs of promise ahead.

As I build shadow boxes for three from my collection I will be thinking about the bold beauty in trustworthy iron mashers and well-worn oak and ash handles, in the untold stories they hold within.

Hopefully, I'll be able to display more 'history in a box' by the end of the week.

Photos by GH 

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Please click here to read 'more about history in a box'

"and the dish ran away with the spoon"

In my humble opinion, my first set of shadow boxes (Hinges 1 - 3) turned out "not too bad." I will soon decide where to hang them so that large numbers of people will see them and say such things as, "So, what's this? Hinges, eh? Why box them up like this?"

["Good workmanship, especially in metal, lasts several lifetimes"]

And in a related matter, a good friend, and frequent visitor to my shop, recently popped over with a great discovery in hand.

"Look at what I found while digging in my backyard," he said. He then showed me an old silver-plated spoon, seriously bent out of shape by an auger, with an interesting maker's mark on the reverse.

["Does '1847 Rogers Bros X S Triple' spell a fortune?"]

"The 'X S' stamp means it was made before 1900," he said, and then asked if I could put it into its own shadowbox, to be displayed in his kitchen.

Whatever the history of the spoon (Did it run away for a tryst with some dish? Was it ever placed in the mouth of some rich man's heir?) I will gladly place it inside a special frame, because human history is best served upon our walls.

Photos by GH

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Please click hear to read 'history in a box' 4

more about 'history in a box'

The workshop is a busy place these days. I just finished a big project and am now onto another set of three shadow boxes. I've displayed historic hinges in three wooden boxes and feel it's now time to show off hard hitting hammers, because I want to send a message, i.e., hard work never hurt anybody.

But I have one last word about one particular hinge and accompanying lock and key. The items are from my dad's barn (in Norwich, Ontario), a century old, leaning-to-one-side type of structure that was once commonly seen inside small villages, towns and cities in SW Ontario.

[Wood from Dad's barn and my own house

in London look pretty good together"] 

Dad's barn is ten-years gone, along with so many others. And I wish it wasn't and I wish I had one like it so I could have a larger workshop (oh, I wish!) and build things that would last even half as long.

["Water colour by Edith Harrison (my mother);

the barn door above (opened) is currently my workshop door"] 

My projects may not, like me, have long legs, but I'll often be found in the busy workshop 'giving it a go' at any rate.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read 'about history in a box 4'

about 'history in a box'

something else I learned when comparing century-old metal to some modern day materials.

work with the best.

photo by gh

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Please click here to read 'history in a box' 4

history in a box (4)

What to do with century-old hinges? Build a box for them and hang them on the walls of your workshop. People will surely appreciate craftsmanship from a bygone era. Won't they?

But, before you hang them on a wall, write a pithy remark about the value of quality workmanship under each hinge. Write in a small hand so people will have to squint, or have to get right up close to the piece of metal to read what you have to say.

"quality work earns our respect. cheap counterfeits rob us while we sleep"

"solid work lasts for several lifetimes. shit dries up and blows away"

"pieces of fine workmanship are like good friends. they won't let you down"

There is some monetary value in old metal, as one might expect. However, I say there is a greater value in examining fine workmanship 'up close and personal' and learning that our generation may have left behind more than can be imagined.

What say you?

Photos and 'history in a box' by GH

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Please click here to view 'history in a box' 3