Maybe I Start From The Wrong End...

[BrokenOlMarine]

... on some projects. Like my small boxes. Unless someone has asked for a box for a specific purpose, or for me to build one of my existing patterns... I start by walking out to the extra boathouse where we store the bulk of my "good" wood, or begin peering into the cabinets and cubbys where the smaller pieces are hiding, until a special piece jumps out at me. "Speaks to me," as they say. I start creating the box in my head from there. I don't design the box, then go looking for the wood. (Seems out of order, huh?)

My newest box is on the bench now. Sorta. The top is... I think. Peering into a cabinet, this oddly shaped remnant of burled maple jumped at me. I took it over to the rocker, and I sat and I drank my coffee and we chatted a bit. Odd shaped, two inches thick at the bottom, half inch at the top, about a foot long. Like a very tall slice of pie. Beautifully grained. I rocked, it whispered. Box top, we decided. Some band saw work created two bookmatched slabs, and some scraps.

Now I have to figure out what box the top will fit, and which wood. Time to wander, peek.. and listen. Is this the wrong way? Lol... or just one way?
Anyone? Anyone?

[Steve Altman]

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me...

[goaliedad]

Seems right to me- the top is the statement piece of the box, so start there and build around it

[Harold O.]

That's the artist conundrum. Unless something specific is asked for, there is no direction. Woodworking can be very technically directed as in following plans for a set of chairs where they must conform to a set of rules. Or it can be freeform within wide guidelines. A box by its very definition requires certain elements as does a table or cabinet. Drift too far from those definitions and the item becomes something else.

You are somewhere when a simple piece of sliced tree can tell you what it wants to become. Good place to be.

[gMike]

Sounds perfectly normal to me.  I frequently buy a piece of wood and let it sit for a while (sometimes years) before I stumble on it again and it seems like it should be something.  I've never drawn a plan or worked from a plan done by someone else.  Mentally, I'm usually about 1 or 2 steps ahead of where I actually am in the project.  This leads to some interesting problems from time to time but that's the fun of woodworking, problem solving.

[Aram]

It's a great way! Life is already too full of things we have to do, with prerequisites and certain ways you have to do them. You pick up a board, you get inspired and make something because that's your vision ... that's fun and freedom.

[teetomterrific]

Does the artist see what lies within the wood, or does the wood whisper what it wants to be? I like to think it's a little bit of both.

[BrokenOlMarine]

I never forgot an interview I read years ago.
I don't remember where, and I don't remember the artist, but the interviewer asked the artist how he could carve such beauty, such lifelike figures, from solid stone.
"It's easy for me," he said, "just before I touch chisel to stone I close my eyes... and I can clearly see the finished piece sitting before me." He grinned. "I simply carve away what I didn't see when I closed my eyes."

[Steve N]

You know after that intro we want to see pics......

How is the shop working out so far?

[wood-chips]

Yes it's kind of like turning.

Get enthused about spending some time on the lathe.

Go find a nice piece of wood in the bone pile, mount it and find out what it want's to be.

.