Profiles - Lost Art Press

Meet the Author: Dr. Jeffery Hill

Posted on November 26, 2022March 20, 2024 by Kara Uhl

Writing “Workshop Wound Care,” a field manual that’s part of Lost Art Press’s pocket-book series, combined two things Dr. Jeffery Hill enjoys and loves: medicine and woodworking. Hill, an emergency room physician and active woodworker, organized this 184-page book so you can resolve common workshop injuries quickly. The book is knowledgeable yet also exceedingly accessible, which is important when you’re feeling a bit panicked. Hill writes as if he’s talking to you bedside, and his manner is one made up of no-nonsense intelligence and education with a bit of empathy and humor. That ease of talking to folks during emergencies big and small comes naturally to Hill – it’s a skill he’s been working on since he was 16.

Finding Mentors in a Small River Town Emergency Department

Hill was born in Madison, Indiana, a small town of about 12,000 people situated along the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati. His mother was a school teacher who taught French (and Spanish in the bookends of her career). His father worked for the Indiana Department of Mental Health, first as a case worker, then as a district and regional manager.

Hill’s grandfather was a pretty successful carpenter and furniture maker, and Hill still owns a couple of the pieces he made, including a small school table that now has a place in his daughter’s room.

“It’s really nice,” Hill says. “He did a lot of work within the community, making things for churches, general carpentry, that sort of thing.”

Hill’s grandfather passed away when Hill was still fairly young.

Hill became interested in medicine as a teenager and in high school, he began volunteering in the emergency department (ED) of King’s Daughters’ Hospital and later working there as an orderly.

“The doctors I encountered there were very impactful,” he says. “I really became interested in medicine in general and picked it as my ultimate career path.”

Hill’s educational path is an interesting one. Emergency medicine (EM) residencies are relatively new in the broader field of medicine. University of Cincinnati’s (UC) EM residency, founded in 1970, is the oldest in the country. According to Hill, prior to EM residencies, a lot of doctors in communities were internal medicine or family medicine doctors who also worked in the ED but lacked in the specialized training necessary to deal with a wide range of emergent conditions.

Back to King’s Daughters’ Hospital: Among the many impactful physicians working in the ED at that time, Hill particularly remembers Dr. Joe Beaven and Dr. Barrett Bernard, who saw a teenager who had an interest in medicine. They talked him through cases, telling him what to pay attention to, how they were sequencing what they were doing, and showing him how to take care of a lot of patients at the same time.

“I still remember them drawing anatomy lessons on the bed sheets in ink to teach the patients what was happening to them,” Hill says. “I imagine it really pissed the hospital off,” he adds, laughing. But that kind of care and way of practice, which he witnessed as a teenager, really fed into Hill’s psyche as he embarked on his own medical degree. In addition to being valuable role models as clinicians, Beaven and Bernard were also role models as educators. The lessons Hill learned at King’s Daughters’ Hospital linger today, as he teaches his residents and as he wrote “Workshop Wound Care.”

A Clinician Educator

Hill knew he wanted to attend medical school; emergency medicine in particular called to him.

He attended Xavier University in Cincinnati from 2000 to 2004 where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Sciences. From 2004 to 2008 he attended U.C. College of Medicine and earned his Doctor of Medicine. He then stayed on at U.C. for his residency training, following which he became a Medical Education fellow, earning his Master of Medical Education from U.C. in 2014. Since graduating fellowship, he has been an assistant residency director in the department of emergency medicine at U.C., an associate professor of emergency medicine, and an attending physician in the emergency department.

As assistant residency director, Hill supervises the department’s weekly Grand Rounds conference, considered “the cornerstone of resident didactic education” with both residents and attending physicians present. These weekly sessions involve simulations, case presentations, and lectures. Hill also mentors the journal club and is the founder and one of the chief editors of the department’s education blog, Taming the SRU (SRU stands for Shock Resuscitation Unit and is colloquially pronounced as “shrew”).

“It’s a great outlet for the residents to try their hand at academic writing,” he says. “It covers common procedures and conditions and literature, and includes weekly summaries of our rounds. It’s an awesome educational tool and a durable collection of all the teaching we’ve done, the Grand Rounds since we started. So if you’re on shift and a student has a question, you can look up and find where we’ve covered it before.”

Much of Hill’s work in emergency medicine has been focused on education and improving the teaching experience.

Since, as he states, “students engage when they’re more ready to engage,” he has sought to find ways of teaching that are adaptable to the variable work hours of his learners.

Finding Balance in a Busy Life

“One of the great things about emergency medicine is the opportunity to wear a bunch of hats,” Hill says. “It keeps things fresh.”

On a typical day, Hill might start out wearing an academic hat, attending meetings and working on academic papers. And then he might switch to a clinician’s hat, working a 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift. And then he’ll switch to his household hat, taking care of things at home.

Hill says while the field is challenging, there are tricks to not burning out. One of those is understanding the task-switching nature of ED medicine and bringing that task-switching nature to his everyday life.

“That’s how I get things done, essentially,” he says.

Emergency medicine has also taught Hill how to better relate to people.

“I think that emergency medicine is very much a people-person type of field,” he says. “You would expect us to be extroverts and we’re not very extroverted. But the ER makes you rapidly establish a relationship with people.”

This way of working, having to facilitate relationships with strangers in an instant, has helped Hill read and understand people in ways he didn’t imagine. You gain a lot of empathy for people, he says. You see a lot of folks who are going through some hard times.”

Woodworking’s Longitudinal Focus

Hill’s interest in woodworking grew later in life.

“I always liked to do things with my hands,” he says.

He took a woodworking class in high school, which he says he really loved, but it wasn’t until his residency that he picked up tools again. He and his wife, who he met in high school (they have a son, 3, and daughter, 8, “and they’re both awesome,” Hill says) had their starter home (a beautiful century-old house) in Pleasant Ridge, just north of the Cincinnati metro area.

“It needed some renovations and so I had to figure out how to do some things,” he said.

First up was an inset bench in their kitchen to give the family a little more seating.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s not put together appropriately. I used whatever wood I could find at the hardwood store because I didn’t know any better.”

Hill says he was inspired, in part, by Christopher Schwarz’s “Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

“If you have something in the world you need, it’s great to make it,” Hill says. “And I learned I was able to make things as exactly as I wanted them and needed them.”

That project led to other projects, learning more about woodworking and watching a lot of joints being made and cut with hand tools on YouTube. Hill bought a small library’s worth of books and read them within a span of a year. He created a Rolodex-like collection of home resources, in the form of books, articles and videos, he says, so that he could solve problems as he encountered them.

There is a reason “Workshop Wound Care” is straight-up problem-solving. He wrote the type of book he wanted to add to his Rolodex collection of resources in his home shop.

Hill also loves cooking and gardening. This year he grew cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce and all kinds of peppers. Together, these three things are his biggest hobbies, yet they all share a common similarity – they are all hobbies you can lose yourself in, he says – especially woodworking.

“Emergency medicine requires deep attention to detail but not quite as much as some other medicine specialties,” he says. “I focus intently on something for a short period of time, shift to something else, and then repeat that a hundred times a day. Woodworking requires a longitudinal focus. I basically stay there and work hours at a time without realizing time has passed. I’m completely focused on that and I completely let go. Gardening is less so. It’s pulling weeds. But I grow for myself. I enjoy the process of starting something off and seeing that it grows.”

Dr. Hill’s woodworking shop is split – his machine tools are in his garage and his hand tools are in his basement. His first big project was a Benchcrafted Split Top Roubo workbench. It was a multi-month-long process.

“I had a joiner but it was very small,” he says. “I basically used hand tools and handplanes to true all the surfaces before I put it through my planer. I tend to build things that are too big. It’s very refreshing to build things that are smaller.”

He has a long wish list of things to build, one of which he just recently crossed off – a beautiful stick chair. While working on it, he enjoyed the same problem-solving aspect of woodworking that he enjoys when working in the ED.

“In a lot of fields, a patient presents with a known problem,” he says. “But in emergency medicine, the problem is figuring something out with the tools you have. It’s very engaging and fun.”

How does he have time for it all? Balance.

“All that just comes from prioritizing your time and being efficient as much as possible,” he says. “And I try to get better at starting projects and finishing in a reasonable time frame. And just making the time for it.”

The Lessons of Life

Hill says that while working in the ED does teach you the good and the bad of life, it’s an honor to take care of people who are very ill.

“Life is nasty, brutish and short,” he says. “People have terrible things happen to them: cancer diagnoses, car accidents, trauma of some kind, through no fault of their own.”

At times he has to compartmentalize the things that happen at the ED. Doing so helps him better appreciate the time he has outside of work. But he also recognizes that you can’t be scared of life. He still drives on the road, he says, even though he knows – and sees the aftermath of – terrible car accidents that happen every day. And he still enjoys woodworking, even though machines are powerful and hand tools are sharp.

Hill recently posted a picture of his nearly finished stick chair, soaking in the evening light, on Instagram. He wrote about the finish he used – one coat of Real Milk Paint Co. Barn Red, one coat of Arabian Night and two coats of Peacock. He said, “Probably burnished a bit much before top coating with two coats of shop finish. At the end of the day I’m happy with the finish and learned some lessons for the next project.”

Hill shared pictures throughout his stick chair-building process. Progress shots, successes and minor setbacks, intermingled with pictures of produce from his garden, his kids – just life. It’s all learning. As a skilled educator, he understands that. Working in both his home shop and in the emergency department, he knows that sometimes, life can be easier with a manual, whether it’s an explanation drawn in pen on a bed sheet, a YouTube video or a little red reference book you can quickly grab if you’ve accidentally hammered your thumb. And that’s why he wrote the latter.

— Harper Claire Haynes & Kara Gebhart Uhl

Meet the Author: Peter Galbert

Posted on August 21, 2022March 20, 2024 by fitz

Peter Galbert (far left) along with (from left to right) Kelly Harris, Aspen Golann, Audi Culver, Lacy Carnahan and Sarah Watlington.

Peter Galbert is proof that risk-taking pays off. Author of “Chairmaker’s Notebook,” Peter is a teacher, chairmaker and experimentalist. He was also one of the first Meet the Author profiles for Lost Art Press. And with his boundary-pushing research and a second book on the way (“Chairmaker’s Notebook Vol. 2,” slated for publication in the spring 2025), Pete is still working to create a world with fewer stopping points.

Like a lot of creatives, Pete struggled to make sense of his role in a seemingly complete world.

“The world that was built up around me seemed really weirdly impenetrable, growing up,” he says. “Everything seemed so already completed. When we got to the end of the 20th century, I thought ‘What are we supposed to add to this? Somebody already figured out how to make the covers for taillights, for God’s sake. What is my place in all this, as someone who is interested in making things? How does it all work?’”

This kind of early introspection and natural curiosity led Pete to move from his home in suburban Atlanta to see what else was out there. He wasn’t very enamored with the world of high school, disillusioned by a seemingly unshakeable awkwardness.

“But who isn’t awkward in high school?” he asks. “I’m still waiting to grow out of it. I plan for next year; I’ve got high hopes,” he adds, laughing.

Peter left the South behind and adjusted to the shock of Chicago winters (and seasonal affective disorder). The transition opened up the world for him, going forward. He says it was a very productive time, and formative.

“I’ve always been pretty comfortable making stupid moves,” he says. “Giving in to impulse, in the end, serves me well.”

That impulse sent him speeding past the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and he embarked for a year on the road. He drove across the United States and started working with his hands – renovations, gallery jobs, apprenticeships. He settled at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he studied photography.

His interests in photography are tied to sparking curiosity and credibility of truth.

“In any sort of making, you’re always alluding to things,” Pete says. “You’re always referencing something, through history, narratives or associations. Bringing people along through that familiarity, you can push them into a new area, where they weren’t expecting to end up.”

Variations on the classical, or subverting an audience’s assumptions are common themes in Pete’s work. Today, he breaks down traditional forms in chairmaking, but their familiarity is retained.

When moved to New York City at age 26, it was a bloom time of activity. Pete worked with furniture makers and cabinetmakers and built sculptures for artists.

“It was a very informative period,” he says. “I saw doors close, and doors open. I thought, I’m not cut out for the art world. I saw the writing on the wall, the closer I got to it. I’m just not that person.”

While in New York, Pete got interested in woodworking. But at the time, the hand tool green wood revolution hadn’t started yet. He was making his own handplanes, experimenting with new tools and techniques.

“I was into learning hand tool techniques,” he says. “But I was nearly laughed out of every shop I was in, almost while I was doing it. They were like, ‘You’re just never going to see that make money. We need to just cut plywood and get on with it.’ And to some degree they were right. But as time has gone on, it’s been really interesting and fun to see how much interest has bloomed on that side of it from enthusiasts and makers now.”

Then, one day, Pete noticed a “for rent” sign while walking the streets of Manhattan. Inside was a 20’ x 12’ storefront workshop, partly occupied by a guitar maker, Justin Gunn.

“He was capable of building a whole guitar on a benchtop with hand tools and I was so impressed with how organic the process was. He took wood and transformed it into something that could be appreciated for more than just its structural integrity or its surface appearance, the tonal quality was like magic. I was super jealous of what Justin made and how he made it. I wanted something like that.”

Pete paid $400 a month to share the space with Justin (who later moved to Holland with his Dutch girlfriend and became a musician). Given that Pete only had room enough to use hand tools, and his desire to build something both beautiful and functional, he set out to make a chair. This pivotal turn in his life happened, in part, because he felt adventurous and – having just finished a project – he decided to break from routine and walk down a different street that day in Manhattan.

“You know, it’s funny because I see myself as rather insular,” he says. “I’m a bit of a homebody. I do my routines. My dog and I basically operate on the same schedule. Although I tend to be pretty provincial in many ways, I’m not that risk averse when it comes to embracing possibilities. If I see something happening, I jump right on it.” In Gunn’s workshop, Pete became a chairmaker.

Finding Community & Creativity in an Old Mill

“Woodworkers are notoriously a romantic lot,” Pete says. “They pour their heart and soul into it and get pennies out. It’s a very tough, tough business.”

By 2000, the low-rent-in-Manhattan gig was up. Pete was faced with a choice: rent another workshop way out in Brooklyn and continue to struggle with the lack of materials (trees) or move to the country. Two hours north he found a farmhouse with 50 acres that he could rent for the same amount of money he would have spent on workshop space in Brooklyn.

At first, Pete lived the country life only part-time. He and his wife at the time commuted back and forth each weekend. But when his then-wife became fed up with corporate life in New York City, and they recognized the fact that they were never very happy on the return drive each Sunday, they took it as a sign and moved to upstate New York for good.

In 2010 Pete moved to central Massachusetts, lived there a couple years, divorced, and lived there for a couple more years. He then moved to Boston. Despite the city living, Pete had a small yard with a separate garage. He worked in a 20’ x 20’ workshop, located close to North Bennet Street School, where he also taught.

In our previous profile, Pete pined for the countryside. And he got there. Pete now lives in a small cabin on a friend’s sprawling New Hampshire property. In his free time, he enjoys the routine of walks through creeks and glens with his rescue dog, Georgia. Georgia started off very shy, and socializing with students took time. Now an integral part of Pete’s ecosystem, she can help students like they helped her. “Something I think is interesting about classes and teaching adults – adults are very good at their lives,” Peter says.” Whatever they’ve done in their lives, whatever has brought them to be able to afford a class and decide to do this, they’re good at it. So when they come into a place where they don’t know anything, or can’t do things, or have to learn things day in and day out, it’s stressful. Even though it’s exhilarating and they do it because they love it, they do need to pet a puppy every once in a while.”

Students at work, with Georgia’s company.

This is a shining example of Pete’s teaching philosophy. Accommodating and leveling with students is a cornerstone of his approach. “My students and I, I feel like we’re all on the same road,” he says. “We’re just at different places on it. We’re all the same person, we’re all walking into the workshop not knowing, and trying, and hoping for the next skill, next achievement. The process is very human. And I think the art of it is trying to remember that when you’re working with folks, you need to help them exactly where they are. A friend of mine, Kelly Harris, is amazing at this. I’ve watched her teach and it’s jaw-dropping seeing how comfortable she is understanding where the person starts. She just sees it from their eyes so beautifully. That’s something I think is vital. It’s one thing to have the chops, but to be able to break it down and communicate it and transmit it is as much a skill as the skills themselves. When you see it done right, it is profound. It’s really wonderful, and sharing that is a lot of fun.”

The Mills at Salmon Falls, Rollinsford, New Hampshire.

Pete has workshop space in The Mills at Salmon Falls in Rollinsford, New Hampshire. The five-story mill, built in 1848, has been converted to accommodate more than 100 artists, including 30-something woodworkers.

“There was space available, and it was reasonable,” he says. “I was being very practical, but I also saw the potential for a community. Since I’ve come up here, a community has grown. A number of people have come to work with me, or peripherally their partners who are creatives. Now we’ve got a little gravity going now, people are starting to show up to be a part of it.”

Pete’s orbit is undeniable. And the mill seems miles away from any art world exclusivity. Teaching is an important part of his work, but his approach is quite different from the years he spent traveling to share his knowledge. Today, Pete only teaches at the North Bennett Street School or at his shop. Pete is also giving classes to and hosting the next generation of woodworking teachers. A big part of these classes, he says, is career advising. One thing he likes to share with his students is the breakdown between the trade and the craft.

“This notion that you’re going to be a rock star who just makes stuff at the edge of your ability all the time. That’s just not the life it really is,” he says. “You have to think of creative ways to continue to allow yourself to stay on the edge of your interests.”

‘The Love of Learning is What Binds Us‘

Pete has surrounded himself with inspired and motivated makers. And in his design process, you can see a man on the edge of his creative ability.

“You can’t see around corners, so you have to start with one interest, march to the end of it, and see where that takes you and be open to where it might go,” he says. “There are just a lot of different places you can push a chair, which is one of the reasons I still see it as a Wild West. There’s so much untrodden territory. It’s kind of like writing. Everything has been said, but you can still write a really profound book, poem, or anything. Even though it’s just 26 letters and everything has been said. Chairs offer so many frontiers, comfort, aesthetics, structures, materials. So I go at it like, ‘Wow, if I can move this forward, what can that open up in the other categories?”’

“I’m very comfortable ruining things,” Pete says. “That’s been a running theme in my life. I leave a long trail of broken crap behind me.”

Along with Charlie Ryland, who works and teaches along side him at the Mill, Pete has been working to develop technology using kiln-dried wood in place of green wood. His motive behind the technology? Accessibility.

“One of the biggest things that has compelled me recently is the lack of resources so many of my students have faced over the years,” he says. “I knew there were issues with sawn and dried woods to be dealt with, but I thought, ‘Why don’t we beat our heads against this and see if we can get it to budge?”’

He and Charlie worked tirelessly – soaking, shaving and playing with sawn and dried ash until it very closely resembled green wood.

“You can split it, shave it, carve it, bend it,” he says. “It has the strength, all the working properties of green wood.”

This technological feat is part of the focus of Pete’s upcoming book with Lost Art Press.

Pete comes from a background of collaboration and toolmaking. Now, he’s working with The Chairmaker’s Toolbox on tool design and consulting.

“This is where my tool-making interest is right now, which I’m always fascinated by,” he says. “It kind of goes back to that notion of when you’ve made a tool, the world becomes so much more malleable to you. Give me a problem that I don’t know the answer to and I am just giddy.”

Problem solving is less of a trench, and more a long walk to the ice cream store, explains Pete. In terms of experimental work, Pete is at a sweet spot. “Now I’ve done it enough to know that we’re going to get there and it’s just wonderful,” he says. “Early on I used to be insecure and I would get really dejected. But now I know where it’s headed. We’ll figure it out, me and whoever I’m working with.”

Ahead of a class he will be teaching for other woodworking teachers, Pete has been thinking about his design process for chairmaking. He poses these questions as a starting point: “Am I interested in a different use of the materials, the tools, a different geometry for the body, a different aesthetic? Or just a general different process that I haven’t engaged in or want to develop?”

Pete says the flow state he often finds himself in while experimenting connects his constant quest for exploration and joy of teaching.

“When I get into that state where I have an idea or concept I am trying to realize or communicate, that is the delicious part of it,” he says. “To explain something is every bit as lovely to me as to make it.”

Pete describes what he thinks about his future in woodworking, and plans to foster a community of his own. He talks about Lance Patterson at North Bennett Street School (“that old wizard there,” Pete says) and being a useful part of an ecosystem like that. From splitting his time between the busy mill and a workshop full of students, it’s no surprise that Pete’s vision is milling with passionate makers.

“Honestly, as I’ve gotten older, I don’t always have the same energy to walk into a dark, quiet shop, turn on the lights, and make everything happen on my own,” Pete confesses.

So for now, he’s making magic alongside other woodworkers (with the help of a centuries-old renovated mill perhaps contributing).

Pete’s risk-taking has many different forms. The risk of embarrassment, of admitting fallibility, is one of them.

“When you’re in the shop, hoping nobody walks in while you fix one of your mistakes, that’s you attempting a level of control, knowing full well that what you’re doing is communicating. And you do not want to communicate that you screwed up. Or that you’re incompetent or incapable or didn’t know. Sometimes, those are very humanizing moments for the viewer. People don’t want to see you as careless, but they love to see the humanity. My students always love it when I screw up. Then they love watching me fix it.”

By taking risks, in myriad forms and ways, Pete now understands that his view of the world as a child was, in part, wrong: The world is not complete. It’s penetrable, and actually, quite malleable. And there is always room for growth. Case in point: Pete just started a new Instagram page for the art he makes, including sculpture, ink drawings and watercolor studies.

“The love of learning is really what binds us,” he says. “Not even the love of the object, or the love of the actual process. Just having your brain turned on is exhilarating.”

With “Chairmaker’s Toolbox Vol. 2,” readers will be treated to Pete’s brain turned up to max volume, all thanks to his experimentation and exploration, not being afraid of failure, and surrounding himself with a community that, as he says, “kicks my butt, opens new doors, and inspires me. I’m lucky that way. I’m really fortunate to have those connections. I’ve got a good peer group.”

— Harper Claire Haynes & Kara Gebhart Uhl

Meet the Machinist: Craig Jackson (Part 2)

Posted on July 3, 2022March 27, 2024 by Kara Uhl

*Craig Jackson (left) and Raney Nelson of Daed Toolworks (right) work on getting manufacturing details on dividers dialed in.*

(You can read part one here.)

Craig Jackson started Machine Time in 2016. It now occupies 25,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The company has 15 employees and plans to hire five more this year. It recently brought on investors to grow even more.

“We mostly do aerospace parts, stupid tolerances,” Craig says. “Some of our tolerances are about the thickness of a Sharpie mark. It’s a whole world that I never truly knew existed. I mean, we’ve got to have temperature control within plus or minus 2°.”

Machine Time’s clients include NASA, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin and more. U.S. manufacturing is such that Craig doesn’t need to look for clients – they find him.

Even though Craig never knows exactly where the parts he makes end up on rockets, he says he can’t watch a launch. “My feet are sweating, and I can’t be in the same room,” he says. “I just peek at the news the next day.”

Starting Machine Time, and the first five years, weren’t easy.

“From Easy Wood Tools, I had a big house, I had a Mercedes, I had Porsches, I had retirement,” Craig says. “I had to sell it all to fund this place. I didn’t take a paycheck for the first 5 years. My wife made $45,000 a year. We had to move into a house that was the size of a good-size living room, from a five-bedroom, five-bath mansion.”

Craig didn’t draw a paycheck until February 2022.

“Along the way it was so humbling, how many people were rooting for us, you know?” he says. “Chris [Schwarz] was like, ‘Hey, can you make these dividers?’ And I was like, ‘Probably not, but I’ll give it a try.’ I mean, it took us a month to figure out how to make anything at all productively. But now we’ve got an unbelievable team. I mean, a lot of these young guys are just sponges. And the relationship with Chris and Crucible has been pretty awesome.”

*Like many shops, Machine Time’s first CNC was a Haas VF2.*

*The present location of Machine Time Inc., Nicholasville, Kentucky.*

*Craig says a super-clean and well-lit facility attracts great employees and customers.*

Craig says the mix of making, say, rocket parts and hammers, has been great for the young folks in his apprenticeship program, too. Craig says it’s an honor to teach them a solid method to feed their family for the rest of their life.

“Solid,” he says. “They can go to any city in the country and make a living.”

Craig likes to show his apprentices the 38 ways he’s screwed something up and then tell them not to do it that way. Pick any other way but one of those ways, he’ll say. “Let me know how it works.” He loves being a machinist.

“It’s all I’ve ever been, a machinist,” he says. “I just think, I was made to do this. I’ve tried to not do it. It keeps coming back. It’s what I enjoy.”

Craig likes taking a big 600-pound hunk of aluminum and turning it into a part that might weigh 12 pounds, something thin, like a skeleton.

“It’s just an attractive process,” he says.

Craig says there are strong similarities and differences to woodworking. When woodworking with machines, often the cutting tool stays still and you pass the work across. In metalworking, it’s the opposite, he says.

“Really the precision of woodworking is pretty well directly proportional to the hand skills of the craftsman,” Craig says. “In metalworking, at least the parts we do, it’s more about the precision of the CNC machine.”

*DMG Mori 5-axis CNC mills – $500,000 – are Craig’s machine of choice now.*

*All aerospace parts go through a rigorous CMM inspection – down to .0001” (about half the thickness of a Sharpie mark).*

Everything Machine Time makes is programmed virtually via software. Craig and his crew see the entire operation take place on a computer screen first. Once perfected, the program is transferred to a machine.

“Now that sounds pretty straightforward but the devil is in the details,” he says. “There’s a lot of opportunity for mistakes. To program and make a part, it’s probably more than 10,000 decisions. Data points, rpms, speed rates, depth of cut, workholding – it’s the ultimate puzzle, just figuring out how to make this thing. In woodworking, there’s not really that much variety of joints. Everybody has a table saw, a band saw, a router. But in metalworking, I probably have more cutting tools than a whole community of woodworking. And I’m not saying one is harder than the other. I’m just saying there may be more overall variables to deal with…but maybe not.”

Craig uses Crucible’s Dovetail Template as an example.

*“CAD/CAM programming is sexy!” Craig says.*

“To make one of those is a challenge,” he says. “But to make a thousand of them and to hand them off to an apprentice and foresee all the potential issues, that’s a good 180 hours of engineering and prototype work. It’s way up there. Especially on a thin part that can vibrate when you’re milling it. There’s a lot to it.”

And then there’s the Crucible’s Sliding Bevel. A collaboration between mechanical designer Josh Cook and Craig, Craig invented a way to allow users to independently control the rotation of the blade and the sliding of the blade.

“Engineering that, and I had to make a custom workholding, I probably had 400 hours in that,” Craig says. “I like what Chris once said: ‘Well, if you don’t like the price of it, we welcome you to go into small-scale manufacturing.’”

Of course, Craig acknowledges most of us are guilty of this line of thinking from time to time, including himself.

“When I go to the store and buy something made in China or a Mercedes or whatever, I look at it and think, ‘Well they got a machine and they just push a button and it spits it out,’” he says. “We just don’t have enough bandwidth to truly consider the depths of everything in our environment. We just don’t have enough brain to do that. And all we do is cuss when it doesn’t work. How does a car even hold together? There are 10,000 parts.”

Having been a machinist since the early 1980s, Craig has witnessed incredible advancements in the industry. Today, technology is key.

“We have to utilize every bit of CNC technology known to be or we can’t be accurate or we can’t be economical,” he says. An average CNC machine at Machine Time weighs 40,000 pounds, and has a 20,000 rpm spindle with 40 horsepower – and it costs half a million dollars.

“Weekly we’re bringing in new types of technology to the company, whether it’s how to hold a part with custom fixtures or another coolant system,” Craig says.

Always forward-thinking, Craig gets excited about technological advancements. He isn’t sentimental.

“Our vision as a company is to make manufacturing sexy again,” he says.

Craig says when he was a kid, it was considered cool if your dad worked in the plant. But now, it’s the opposite. Technology, he says, has the opportunity to change that.

“I grew up cranking handles on a Bridgeport mill or an engine lathe but machinists now are computer programmers at a basic level, with a high understanding of physics – we know materials, cutting tools and measuring,” he says. “As I get freed up from the day-to-day I’m going to try to hit the road and talk to colleges and high schools and just show them what we do, show them rocket parts and how we go about all this.”

Craig asks, “Have you ever seen a movie, heard a song, read a book that has a machinist in it?” He can think of one: “The Machinist.” It was a 2004 psychological thriller starring Christian Bale. It’s neither romantic nor uplifting. “I just want to see if I can move that needle a bit,” Craig says.

Craig’s vision for the future of Machine Time is to grow: increase benefits, capacity, all of it.

“The complete vision, as bold as it may be, is to create a standard machine shop model and apply it across the country,” he says. “Machine Time Nashville. Machine Time Las Vegas. And so on. That’s the goal. I don’t know that I’m the guy that can complete that but everything we do is in that direction. And whether we do another location or not, those are just good fundamental business practices.”

Craig says if he had $100 million, he wouldn’t retire. He’d have a bigger machine shop.

“We’ve got customers begging us to do more,” he says. “You know, I worked my butt off my whole life but with Easy Wood Tools, I always felt like it came too easy. It was not easy. But I was never sure that I earned it. I can tell you right now, at this point, I feel like I earned it.”

A Life Chronicled in Book Titles

Craig met his wife Donna on a blind date in 1984. She was 14, he was 16. They’ve been together 38 years. Today Noah is 24 years old, Sam is 22. They both work at Machine Time.

“They both went their own ways for a little bit like most all young men do,” Craig says. “You know, your dad’s the biggest hero and the biggest asshole you’ve ever known as you grow up. And then when you go out in the real world, you realize it’s good to have somebody who truly has your back. So they’ve come back to my open arms!”

*Craig and Donna after 38 years together.*

Craig and Donna live on 5 acres. Craig has a 30’ x 30’ detached garage at home that serves as a workshop – woodworking, as he doesn’t do any metalworking at home. He still loves woodworking and he makes cutting boards, bowls and dining room tables on weekends, giving most of it away to his employees and friends. He stores his wood in a 40’ x 60’ old tobacco barn.

*A walnut table for an employee who celebrated five years with Machine Time. Buzz, the dachshund, is underneath.*

*Craig’s tobacco barn, where he stores his lumber.*

“I love my lumber,” he says. “And bowl blanks. I’ve got two locations for Machine Time and I’ve got wood strewn across these two locations and my basement and my workshop and my barn so I can never find the bowl blank that I’ve got hidden who knows where and I’m still buying more.”

Craig likes to stay busy.

“I can’t even sit down on a Sunday afternoon unless my body gives out so there’s a curse to it,” he says. “Your strength is always a weakness. My weakness is that I can’t sit down and relax. Vacations, I’m not so great at that. I’m not saying one thing is better than the other.”

Craig used to travel a lot with Easy Wood Tools – he’d put up to 50,000 miles a year on his truck and fly. There were pluses and minuses. His boys were pretty young, but Craig says Donna likes to remind him that the family saw the country. They took the kids skiing, to Cancun, to Disney. They did all kinds of stuff. So although he was away from his family for periods of time, he also had the freedom to spend extended periods of time with them, too. These days?

“I don’t want to leave Donna, not even for an evening,” he says. “She’s my best buddy.”

Craig went through a really difficult period when he didn’t get all his money from Pony Tools and had to sell everything to start Machine Time.

“I about lost my mind,” he says.

To cope, he started acrylic painting.

“It’s probably the most emotional thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “You know the fear of failure? It’s not like making a machine part or making a table or making a bowl. Because I never know what the results are going to be. I don’t look at anything. I just smear it out. And it’s an amazing release. And maybe that’s because of the point in my life when I started doing it. I’m not an artist on paper at least, but it truly helped me keep my sanity. So I paint when I have to.”

*“I often have no idea what I am painting till I’m 90-percent done – same with most things I do,” Craig says.*

Craig spent the morning of our interview cleaning up 100 gallons of coolant that had spilled out on the floor from a CNC mill. He was mopping it up, throwing wood chips on it. The way he talks about setbacks, big and small, is admirable. They’re all lessons.

“Those lessons, from the bad times, oh my gosh, they’re so much better than the good ones,” he says. “Anybody can do good times and I don’t know if there are any lessons in them, really.”

Around the time Craig sold Easy Wood Tools he also started taking notes, called Book Titles. Today he has hundreds of them, a compilation of big statements condensed. Sometimes he quotes famous philosophers and makes notes. For example:

“The measure of a man is how much truth he can stand (truth always demands change). Nietzsche. AKA – Don’t fear the facts.”

Sometimes he writes his own. For example:

“The universe owes no debts. AKA – Believe that your effort is worth it.”

He calls them learning statements.

“They’re hard-earned and they came at a price,” he says. “And each of them came from a particular moment in time.”

His biggest one?

“Be willing to accept the consequences of doing the right thing.”

The Consequences of Doing the Right Thing

When Craig worked at the tobacco company, the HR manager told him that one day, when she interviewed there, the general manager asked her, “What makes you a good person?” And she told Craig that she didn’t have an answer for that. Craig thought about this for a few days.

“For me,” he says, “it’s, I’m willing to accept the consequences of doing the right thing. And so is Chris. And so is Megan [Fitzpatrick]. I think the word consequences is so often associated with ‘violation’ or ‘you broke the law.’ But the true consequences in life are for doing the right thing. And that’s the best long-term solution. Just look at the long-term. Just think about that, five years from now.”

And five years from now, Craig just wants to keep making ever-more difficult parts.

“It’s all about making jewelry, make it perfect, make it to print, make it amazing to the customer and then we’ll see if we can make money at it,” he says. “I don’t know if I even care about the money. I don’t know. I don’t know that I do.”

*“Smile and you will end up happy.” – Craig*

Craig likes to tell people this story.

“I feel like when I meet my maker, he’s only got one question: ‘Did you do everything you could with every day I gave you?’ I’ve already got my answer. So when things get too easy, I feel guilty. I’ve got to do more. I’m still walking. Chris is the same way. I’m not the only person. I’m not saying any of this is unique to me, that’s not my point. Everybody’s got me in them. But I’ve got everybody in me too. And we’re all just trying to get through the day and go to bed.”

One morning in 2020, as Craig was driving to Machine Time, tired, his funds drying up more and more by the day, he saw a familiar barn, for the first time really, along the way.

“These words came to me instantly and I pulled over and jotted them down just as I heard them,” he says.

Today, he has them printed and framed, below the above illustration of the barn.

Leaning, but not falling

Falling, but not hitting the ground

Hitting the ground, but bouncing

Bouncing, to my feet

Stepping, but not walking

Walking, but not running

Running, into the wind, and leaning

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

Meet the Machinist: Craig Jackson (Part 1)

Posted on June 26, 2022March 27, 2024 by Kara Uhl

“All I’ve ever been and all I am still is just a machinist,” says Craig Jackson.

Craig, owner of Machine Time, which provides custom machining services using 3-, 4- and 5-axis CNC machining, manufactures elements of several Crucible tools, including the Crucible Sliding Bevel (which he also co-designed); Crucible Dovetail Template; Crucible Dividers, Type 2; Lump Hammer; Crucible Pinch Rods; and Crucible Card Scraper.

Craig grew up with his mom, dad and three older sisters on a 200-acre cattle farm just south of Owensboro, Kentucky, in Utica. They lived on his Grandpa Gus’s farm, who, semi-retired, was down to 40 head of cattle and a bull. There was a lot to experience, Craig says.

“We cut hay with the tractor and I could remember being so small, driving that Massey Ferguson 135 tractor that when I had to push in on the clutch I had to get both feet on the left side of the tractor to stand on that clutch so I could either do clutch or brake,” he says. “So it helped me make good decisions when I was young, that old survival of the fittest thing. And it was all on a hill. You know the old fold-down sickle bar mowers, these things that hang off the side of the tractor that are great at cutting legs off deer (I mean, I never did that). Just, from a really young age, I remember understanding the physics of things. If you didn’t, you got hurt.”

*Poppa Gus’s homestead and cattle farm, Utica, Kentucky.*

Craig was always the skinniest kid, so when lifting up bales of hay onto the trailer he would have to figure out ways to leverage his body to his advantage.

“Growing up in all that, and all the conveyer belts and things that want to chop you up and spit you out in smaller pieces, it just gave me an attention to that, to looking at the mechanisms of the old equipment and the new equipment,” he says. “And then I always had a go-cart, four-wheeler, three-wheeler and motorcycle, so I was always riding those things. I didn’t like the feeling of crashing so I learned how to ride safely. But I was just around a lot of mechanical things.”

*The day after Craig outgrew his go-cart.*

Craig’s dad, a welder, and brother-in-law, a tool and die maker, started a machine shop in the backyard when Craig was 14.

*The first location of J & L Welding and Machine, est. 1977, Utica, Kentucky.*

“I started working out in the machine shop begrudgingly, you know when you’re 14,” he says. “My first job was sharpening jack hammer bits. A jack hammer bit gets blunted on the end so I stood at our shop-built belt sander and put a four-facet point on it, kind of a four-facet pyramid point on it, and I heated them up in the torch and dunked them in oil. I did that for probably a whole summer.”

They soon got into building weight-lifting equipment. By now it was 1983. Customers would bring in pictures from weight-lifting magazines and ask for four-station machines with pulldowns, bench presses etc.

“And I would just look at the picture and I would measure from my elbow to my shoulder and just build the machine,” Craig says. “I would drill all the holes in weight stack plates, make the benches, I’d do all the spray painting, I’d do all the upholstery, make all the pulleys – I learned to work from minimal information.”

By the time Craig was 18, he bought his dad out and moved J & L Welding and Machine just north to Owensboro, Kentucky. There he made all sorts of things, such as fixtures for furniture companies to glue up chair frames and fixtures to rotate an entire couch while it was being upholstered.

*The second location of J & L Welding and Machine, 1022 Oglesby St., Owensboro, Kentucky.*

“It was just so awesome to have the trust of customers and to build and deliver what they needed,” he says.

He was working 60 hours a week but he liked the work and he liked working. When Craig was 22, he sold his part of the machine shop and went to work as a machinist for America’s Best Chew tobacco factory in Owensboro (back then it was known as The Pinkerton Tobacco Company; the name changed in January 2022). The 10-acre factory produced about 25,000 pounds of chewing tobacco and about 600,000 cans of snuff a day on three miles worth of conveyor belts.

*Craig as a machinist at the tobacco company, 1994.*

“I was in heaven,” he says. “All this stuff, cutting and chopping and conveying tobacco, kind of like what I grew up with.”

He found himself remaking the same stuff over and over. “So, I set out to fixing the problems that caused the never-ending use of all these spare parts,” he said. “I would re-engineer and remake the part. I would make a proper shaft once, instead of 15 shafts a year. And that really increased throughput in the factory.”

For about seven years during this time, Craig held several other jobs too. He would work at the tobacco factory from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., then he’d work his side business, Jackson Contracting, grading and seeding new yards until 6 p.m. Then he’d teach machine tool technology at the local vocational school from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Jackson credits his mom and grandpa for his strong work ethic.

“They didn’t just sit around,” he says. “And they seemed to be the happiest people I knew. My favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastics, by King Solomon, maybe the richest, most successful person in the history of the world. All he concluded was, nothing beats a hard day’s work. He had all the gold, all the women, all the power, and he just said, it ain’t doing it for me.”

After about a decade at the tobacco company, Craig was promoted into a management role as continuous improvement manager over the entire factory. Although he was being groomed for Factory Manager, he ended up leaving in 2010 to grow Easy Wood Tools.

A Better Woodturning Tool

Craig stumbled into woodturning in 2007 while shopping with his wife, Donna, in Evansville, Indiana. Donna needed a pair of shoes so while she went into a Shoe Carnival, Craig went next door into a Woodcraft.

“I had never heard of a Woodcraft,” he says. “I went in there and saw a book by Malcolm Tibbetts, on segmented woodturning. I opened that up and I was just amazed. I had no idea anything in woodworking could be this complicated.”

Craig got into making segmented bowls.

“I bought a little Jet mini lathe, put it in my garage, and kept making bigger and bigger bowls, got a big Powermatic lathe, and a trailer, and a 30” chainsaw and it kind of got out of hand,” he says. “But the whole time I was like, what is up with these bowl gouges? This makes no sense! If I had set out to make the most complicated and dangerous cut known to man, I would end up with a bowl gouge.”

So Craig started playing around with carbide inserts. Unable to find anything he liked, he engineered his own replaceable carbide inserts (eliminating the need to constantly resharpen) with crazy angles. He then designed tools with stainless steel to hold the carbide inserts and wooden (mostly maple) handles.

“I was just making the heck out of these bowls with my carbide tools and I thought, maybe I need to show somebody,” he says.

In 2008 Craig attended the Tennessee Association of Woodturners symposium in Nashville and showed his tool to Nick Cook.

*Nick Cook tried Craig’s tool for the first time in 2008. Nick helped Craig land his first retailer.*

“Nick Cook has probably done more woodturning than maybe anybody on the earth,” Craig says. “So I handed him the tool and I said, ‘Nick, I made this tool. I got $125 I’ll pay you to just try this tool out.’ He said, ‘Let me see that thing.’ He took a few cuts with it and said, ‘You don’t owe me nothing. You need to get this on the market.’ I said, ‘OK, I’ll do that.’ And then I said, ‘Hang on. How do you take a product to market?’”

Nick told Craig that he’d connect him with some folks at Craft Supplies USA. Craig sent Darrel Nish a sample.

“They were like, ‘Yeah, you need to start making these,’” Craig says.

Craig knew he needed to go into mass production, but he had no idea how to go into mass production. He simply had to figure it out. Craig sold his tool with Craft Supplies USA exclusively for a year. Then Woodcraft called him up. He sent them some tools.

“A week later, they sent me a $75,000 purchase order,” Craig says. “So I called them back and said, ‘Hang on now. This is just me, my wife, and my two sons – they’re 8 and 10 years old – and the baseball coach. So I mean – we’re just – this is not what you think!”

Craig says a couple things set them apart – aside from the product – that likely made them noticeable to a company such as Woodcraft.

“We did pretty good at marketing and presenting of the product,” he says. “No. 1, we loved the customer. Whatever the customer wanted. I didn’t care how ridiculous it was. If you wanted a purple handle, I made you a purple handle.”

Craig told Woodcraft he didn’t have the capital to buy the raw materials to fulfill the purchase order.

“So they said, ‘We’ll send you a check,’” Craig says. “About three days later I got a $75,000 check in my mailbox. They hadn’t met me, they hadn’t shook my hand, they hadn’t seen my face. No contract. I sat there in the driveway and cried. This is, this is, OK.”

Craig then laughs thinking back at this poignant time in his life, when Easy Wood Tools was officially in business.

“All I’ve ever been and all I am still is just a machinist,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever claimed to be. So we had to figure out packaging, logistics, shipping, mass production, all in the backyard.”

At one point they ordered all the packaging for the tools and it arrived on a pallet. The delivery person left the pallet in the street, and Craig and his family crew were left figuring out how they were going to muscle the pallet and all its contents up a slope to his garage. At one point, everything fell off the pallet, into the street.

“Everything you can imagine going wrong went wrong,” he says. “But we shipped that order, on time, in full, with no rejects,” he says. “I don’t know how we did it.”

*The humble beginnings of Easy Wood Tools in Craig and Donna’s small backyard garage.*

At first it was a family affair. In the evenings, Craig, Donna and their two sons, Noah and Sam, would package up products Saturday and Sunday nights while watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” while sitting on the living room floor. Sam would get a cutter and drop it in a bag. Noah would add a screw and Ziploc the bag shut. Donna would fold it and staple it. Craig would box it up.

“It was a little Jackson assembly line and they thought it was just as normal as could be,” Craig says.

*The company grew and grew with upwards of 20 employees, and moved from Owensboro to Lexington, Kentucky.*

*Craig designed most of his packaging and branding, with the help of Tim Jones, and did woodturning demos all over the country.*

*Noah and Craig with woodworker Thomas MacDonald (aka Tommy Mac)*.

*Craig and Donna filming “The American Woodshop” with Scott Phillips*.

There are two things Jackson is really proud of when it comes to Easy Wood Tools. First, it was the company’s ability to capture the essence of the power of possibility.

Something Jackson has always found interesting: At woodturning shows, during the auctions at the end of shows, wood blanks would often go for more money than turned pieces of art.

“And what that told me is the value of possibility is much greater than the value of possession,” he says. “I think that’s what I was able to do with Easy Wood Tools. I would give the customer the path to the possibility of making a great bowl because the tools are so simple. We could hand them to 8-year-olds and they would turn pens.”

Second, in the beginning, traditional tool companies would chastise Craig for taking away business. At first, this stung. But in his heart he knew he was not taking away anybody’s income. So he simply asked competing companies to simply give him a chance. He told them he would increase their sales by growing the number of woodturners. And sure enough, he did. Easy Wood Tools produced more woodturners who not only bought Easy Wood Tools, but woodturning tools from every other woodturning tool company as well.

*The goal was to make woodturning simple enough for anyone to try.*

“And then, by 2013, everybody and their brother was knocking me off and I was about done with it,” Craig says. “I mean, it was like 20 companies. I’d go to a trade show and on each side of me there were companies selling knockoffs, and they weren’t as good.”

This hurt, Craig says. “I built that company best I could not taking nothing from nobody and I just, I don’t know.”

In 2015 Craig sold Easy Wood Tools to Chicago-based Pony Tools Inc., of Jorgensen clamp fame. Within six months Pony Tools went bankrupt, and Craig didn’t get all his money. So he turned to what he knew best – machine work.

(Note, Craig has not had any affiliation, whatsoever, with Easy Wood Tools since 2015.)

But first, he had to sell everything.

Look for Part 2 Sunday, July 3.

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

John Welch: Elevating the Most Ordinary Food

Posted on June 12, 2022March 20, 2024 by fitz

*John Welch at work. (Photo: Jenn Bakos Photo.*)

“This past weekend, I knew I needed to test a new pasta board design…but hadn’t had time to sort out what I’d do with the pasta. Then when I’m out running errands, I spot some beautiful in-season asparagus at the local farm, which was nice and thick, just about the diameter of the cavatelli I was going to be making! Quick blanch and ice water bath on the asparagus, simple butter sauce with lemon juice and splash of white wine, finished with burrata, lemon zest, and of course an olive oil drizzle. Late spring on a plate!”

This paragraph from a recent Instagram post pretty much explains why I wanted to interview John Welch for the blog. John is a guy who primarily makes beautiful things out of wood for the preparation and serving of food. He’s not a furniture maker (though he certainly could be); his posts are not about dovetails, or techniques for finishing. Rather, he is motivated by a desire to “take something ordinary and make it special.”

*The photo that accompanied the quotation at the head of this post.*

*The love of food has always been there.*

When asked what brought him to the world of pasta molds and boards, he answered simply “I love food. I love cooking food, eating, all kinds of food.” Add to this his observation that “too many people have beautiful things that are too precious [to use],” and you’re on your way to understanding what drives this man to finish most days at the office with several hours of work in his shop. What could be simpler than pasta – a basic dough of flour, salt and water? But roll a pinch of that mix across a board carved with decorative patterns, and you’ve elevated the plainest of pastas to an art form – as pleasing to the eye as it is effective at capturing a spoonful of saucy goodness and conveying it to the mouth.

*Texture aplenty in pasta made with parsley and saffron, respectively.*

*Evidence that food and woodworking belong together: A third-year birthday cake in the shape of a handsaw.*

The origin of his interest was basically curiosity, John said in reply to my question about what got him started.

“I wanted to know if pasta could take and hold an impression. I assumed it would but had never seen a textured ravioli. I made my own mold first, then I did some Googling to see if anyone already made something like that.” John could have ordered a mold to use as an example but decided against doing so for a few reasons. “I am always very afraid of inadvertently ‘borrowing’ someone else’s idea, so I thought that the less I looked at them, the less likely I would happen upon a similar pattern or idea. Also, the motivation to make them was…a curiosity [as to whether] it’d work, then how to make it work; if I had one in hand, it’d be easier for me to reverse-engineer and that would have taken all the fun out of it! I didn’t make them with the intention to sell. It was just a fun project.” It took John a few attempts to figure out how deep the carving would have to be to show up on the pasta and remain sharp after cooking.

The first one he was happy with featured a wheat pattern loosely based on an example of Art Deco ironwork. Made in walnut, it had leaves in the corners; he put stars between them.

*A savory pumpkin ravioli. To see how John served it, go to the end of the post.* *Food preparation images by Jenn Bakos Photo.*

*Flattening a small piece of dough with an old-fashioned rolling pin before running it through the pasta mangle.*

Woodworking
This is not a story about someone born into a family of woodworkers or generations who have made their own pasta from scratch. John’s forebears are not Italian; most are Irish mixed with French-Canadian. The “Francis” in his business name is his middle name; he’s John Francis Welch V.

*The first spoon John carved, in process. The bowls for his ravioli molds are done with a router and jig.*

John, the eldest of three siblings, grew up in a late-1800s house where his father always seemed to be engaged in repairs and maintenance. Although his dad didn’t compel or even expect John’s help, he exposed his older son to many aspects of home repair and restoration simply by carrying out household repairs and improvements.

As a woodworker, John is self-taught. When he was a kid his family didn’t have cable, but John could watch PBS, where he became a regular viewer of “The Woodwright’s Shop” and “The New Yankee Workshop.” He found the content interesting but had no intention of ever applying what he learned in real life. Even so, some of it sank in.

His parents loved handmade gifts, things from the heart. John dabbled in woodworking during high school; he was going to give his girlfriend a teddy bear and had decided to make an oak chair for it. His dad helped him cut the parts to size; then John built the chair with mortise-and-tenon joints. His mother had woven some baskets, so based on her example, he decided to weave a seat.

After that, woodworking went on the back burner as his interests shifted to motorcycles, fast cars and weight lifting, which led him to certification as a personal trainer. On his website you’ll find a portrait of John with bulging biceps that might lead you to wonder whether he’s more interested in appearances than substance. Not a bit of it. In middle school, other students had pushed him around, grabbing his books. His dad encouraged him to develop his muscles saying, “If you were strong enough to hold onto those books, they wouldn’t be able to rip them out of your hands.” So, as with most things that piqued his interest, John picked up that ball and ran with it.

He worked as a personal trainer in college, then, in his late 20s, he got into competitive power lifting. “I tend to be very goal oriented,” he explains. “I was losing focus – ‘Why am I going to the gym at 5 a.m?’ I’ve always been a very curious person, both [in terms of] ‘how does that work’ and ‘can I do that?’ Power lifting was very different from anything I’d done before.” The goal of competition provided just the oomph he needed, not just to keep going, but to excel. He won his first competition.

When John bought a townhouse in 2009, he had some home improvement projects in mind. He bought a miter saw and put up crown moulding, then replaced some doors. After the first few projects, he ran out of things to do. John was godfather to the daughter of a good friend; for her first birthday, her mother put in a request for a toy box. “I think she was expecting me to throw something together with plywood,” he remembers. “But if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it well.” The toy box became his focus that summer. John had bought some handplanes on eBay; his brother deals in antiques, and John had tagged along on some of his adventures, which exposed him to more tools. He learned to sharpen. He bought some rough-sawn lumber and got started, building the toy box with stub tenons and solid wood panels. If it lasted, he figured, someday it could be used as a chest to store things other than toys. He worked in the garage, with a pair of sawhorses, a router, miter saw, circular saw and set of Kobalt chisels from Lowe’s.

*A toy chest John made for his goddaughter.*

In his day job, John designs extrusion dies for pasta at De Mari Pasta Dies. He was the first employee in the business who was not related to the founding family. Most of their products are in large chain grocery stores around the United States. “Every cartoon [mac and cheese made by one of the nation’s largest food corporations] for the last 15 years, I have personally designed all of those.”

While he appreciates his work and gives it his level best, he says, “I work my 8 hours and leave. With woodworking I can make what I want to make. It gives me the freedom to do what I want to do.”

For a time, he used his garage as a woodshop. He had to come up with some items to make that would need little space and very few tools. Spoons were one candidate, a handmade item that would “add a lot of love and care” in the preparation of a meal. His business took off from there.

As part of his day job for a time, John oversaw the installation of major pasta-making machinery at facilities around the North American continent, mostly in the Midwest, but with a few trips to Washington State and Canada. The travel for work underscored that his decision to buy a townhouse with his wife, Kara, a training specialist for a property management company, had been sound; their home required far less work than would have been required by a house with multiple rooms and a yard to maintain. While traveling for work, he had to use the garage for his car, not woodworking.

When the travel for work slowed down and John again had time for woodworking, he needed a studio space to rent – either that, or he and Kara would have to move to another house. The first studio he rented and the couple he rented after that were at Western Avenue in Lowell, Mass.; in June of 2021 he moved to his current space, 240 square feet in a repurposed textile mill that had been turned into artist studios. As he later learned, the building is the same one where his great-grandfather had worked decades before as a “grease monkey,” maintaining machinery for one of the mills that made Lowell, Mass., such a late-19th-century economic powerhouse that many still think of it as “the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution” (at least in North America). John’s great-grandfather also did some woodworking on the side. He built the house where John’s paternal grandmother grew up, followed by his own father, and where John’s parents continue to live. His great-grandfather had made a grandmother clock as a gift for John’s parents; today John keeps it in his studio.

At this point, he says, “My goal was to pay the rent for my studio. If money was no object, I would make mirrors, wall sculptures, hand-carved tabletops. But the ravioli molds caught on.” When he started, charcuterie boards were a transition after the toy box for his goddaughter.

John is constantly looking for ways to improve his processes – to carve the ravioli molds, he’s upgraded his tool chest with some chisels from Japan, and he now makes some of the decorative patterns with a router. “As much as I love carving,” he acknowledges, “it gets to a point where it’s not financially feasible. I don’t really make spoons anymore; it’s partly because I can’t charge enough to make it worth it.”

This concern with workflow is a holdover from his day job, where he’s required to maximize efficiency. “I’ve always been more Type A,” John remarks. “The other artists at my former studio would tell me ‘You’re not a real artist,’ because my studio was so clean. I’ve always been like that: If something could be better, why not make it [so]?”

Some might have burned out after 300 ravioli molds, the number he sold in 2021. Not John. He plans to keep making them. “Part of what’s kept me going is that with the internet, a lot of people who buy them make these incredible dishes. I can’t tell you the rewarding feeling it gives me to see people feeding their friends and family with molds I’ve made.” He hopes to do more carving – art pieces, textured mirrors and more – but acknowledges the struggle involved in “going from ‘practical’ things to things that are meant [primarily] to be looked at. I blame it on my Yankee upbringing not to engage in ‘frivolous’ things.’”

He also continues to make a smaller number of other wares, such as charcuterie trays and pasta boards.

“I mentioned that I like to cook, but I LOVE to cook, and most of all explore with food. I love that the possibilities are endless, there is so much to learn, so much freedom of expression allowed. I love that you can travel to distant lands that you may never otherwise get to experience, all through flavors,” says John. “So with that said, my kitchen adventures have been pretty thorough: sausage making, curing meats, smoking, bread baking, pasta making (obviously), pâté and terrines, sous vide cooking, etc… About the only thing I don’t dabble in are baked sweets!”

Selfishly, I’d like to think it’s just a matter of time.