I’ve been asked to make the keynote address at the Lie-Nielsen Open House on July 7-8 and also will give a lecture and demonstration on “Finishing With Fire” and showing how to do it with furniture components.
For the keynote, my topic is titled “The Hand Tool Backlash,” and I’ve been working on it for several weeks now. Previous keynote speakers, such as Peter Follansbee and Roy Underhill, have made such amazing speeches at the Open House that fair ladies fainted and the sick were healed.
Though I’m no professional speaker, I vow to give it my best. (Actually, nothing can best my story about my first colonoscopy. And as I probably shouldn’t tell that particular story, this will be my second best.)
Finishing With Fire For my demonstration at 3 p.m. Friday, I’ll be assembling and finishing one of my three-legged stools with a gas torch and a mixture of linseed oil and beeswax. I’ve been experimenting with this finish for several years now and have figured out how to make it really easy, even for fire-fearing scarecrows.
Also, I’ll be happy to sell the completed stool to anyone planning to attend. These stools are $175 and are made from Southern yellow pine. I’ll be happy to customize the stool for your height on the spot. If you’d like the stool, send a note to help@lostartpress.com, and I’ll reserve it for you.
About the Event The Lie-Nielsen Open House is a fantastic family event with lots of demonstrators, toolmakers and food. In addition to me, other demonstrators include Christian Becksvoort, Danielle Rose Byrd, Phil Lowe, Peter Follansbee and Peter Galbert.
Also attending: Megan Fitzpatrick of Popular Woodworking Magazine, planemaker Matt Bickford, Tico Vogt of Vogt Toolworks, Isaac Smith of Blackburn Tools, Joshua Klein of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, furniture maker Freddy Roman, miniature maker Marco Terenzi, Kenneth Kortemeier of the Maine Coast Craft School, chairmaker and toolmaker Tim Manney, Mason McBrien from the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, planemaker Scott Meek, Bob Van Dyke from the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, planemaker Dan Schwank, saw sharpener Matt Cianci, Wes Sutherland from the Guild of Maine Woodworkers, bowmaker Stim Wilcox, Rory Wood from Rare Woods, boat maker Kevin Carney, Steve Branam from the Close Grain School of Woodworking, Chris Kuehn of Sterling Toolworks and Travis Knapp of RareWoods.us.
Whew, that’s the longest list of vendors I’ve ever seen at the Open House. Should be great.
Note, I won’t be bringing any Lost Art Press books or Crucible tools with me. But Lie-Nielsen carries almost our entire line and those will be available for purchase at the event. As always, I am happy to sign your books (or anything else you put in front of me).
In May of 1605 explorer Captain George Waymouth and his crew arrived off the coast of the “Northern part of Virginia” as that part of the New World was called. They were on a small island off the coast of what is now known as Maine and near the mouth of the Tanahock River, later to be known as the St. George’s River.
A copy of a copy of the 1610 Simancas (Spain) archive map. Waymouth’s explorations are in the area outlined by the blue box. From the Maine Historical Society.
Captain Waymouth took soundings and other measurements during the exploration but no maps survive. We do have the account of James Rosier, a gentleman employed on the voyage who wrote “The True Relation of the Most prosperous voyage made this present yeere 1605 by Captain George Waymouth in the Discovery of the land of Virginia” (that’s the shortened title). He provides a description of the fruits and trees found in mid-May while still on the island:
After constructing smaller boats for navigation in shallower waters they started to make excursions to other islands and into the river. They were astounded by the freshness of the water, the abundant catches of fish and the many deep coves along the river. In mid-June Rosier wrote:
The “notable high timber trees, mast for ships of 400 tun” were the Eastern White Pine, Pinus strobus. Captain Waymouth was not on a pleasure cruise. He and and his crew were on a voyage to find and report on resources and within several decades the business of mast-making would become the first major industry of New England.
By the 17th-century Britain had exhausted the supply of timber need to make single-stick masts for the ships of the Royal Navy. Britain was in fierce and expensive competition for Baltic fir with Spain, France and Holland, a new and cheaper source for mast timber was desperately neeeded. Pinus strobus was the answer and became known as the “mast pine.”
The Eastern White Pine is known as one of the tallest trees in the Eastern part of the United States. It is easy to work and lighter than other woods. Besides masts the wood could be used for other shipbuilding components, pitch and tar were used for seaming and resin and turpentine were used to make paint and varnish. For future colonists Eastern White Pine would be used to build homes, wagons, barns, furniture and so on.
First Person Observations
Samuel Sewall was a judge in Boston. He is best known in United Staes history as one of the judges in the Salem Witch Trials (he later apologized). He was also a businessman and he kept a diary of his daily actions and the events he witnessed or had reported to him. It is almost overwhelming to read the number of injuries that befall his friends and neighbors and the incredible number of deaths that seem to occur each week. But thanks to his dedication in keeping a record we get a few details about the timber trade and the progression of the mast industry some 80 years after Waymouth’s voyage.
From Thursday, September 1, 1687: “This day we receive a Sloop Load of Boards from the Salmon-falls Saw-mill and the same day, I think by the same Boat, I receive a Copy of a Writ of Ejection which Mr. Mason has cause’d to be serv’d on John Broughton respecting said Mill.”
Sewall was an investor in a sawmill and the writ he mentions may have involved a mill in which he had an interest. He takes a trip to resolve the issue but the court involved cannot meet and the case is deferred until the following March. His trip continues and we get a glimpse of the mast industry from his entrry of September 14:
“See the Mill, get a Cut, visit Mrs. Rainer and her Daughter Broughton. Breakfast there. Ride into Swamp to see a Mast drawn of about 26 inches of 28 [diameter]; about two and thirty yoke of oxen before, and about four yoke by the side of the Mast, between the fore and hinder wheels. ‘Twas a very notable sight. Rode then to York…”
18th-century example of how a large beam was transported. Moving a mast would have required many more teams of oxen.
The following spring Sewall again traveled to resolve the business with the Writ at the Mill but the case was dropped due to the death of one of the parties. He continues his trip and notes on March 9, 1688: “Goe to the Great Iland [Island], saw the Mast-Ship sail.”
Although Sewall lived in Boston his many travels took him to other parts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The sawmill in which he invested, the swamp where he observed a mast being pulled and the sailing of the mast ship were along the Piscataqua River in what is now New Hampshire and Maine.
Map of the Pascataway River, ca. 1665-1670. Red arrows mark Quamphegan Falls (site of a sawmill) and Great Island. Portsmouth is not marked but is located at the mouth of the river. Today New Hampshire lies on the left bank of the river, Maine is on the right bank. From the Maine State Library.
Sewall’s sawmill may have been at Quamphegan Falls or further up the river at Salmon Falls. Both falls were an important part of the timber business in this part of the colony. Masts taken from the forests were moved down to Portsmouth at the mouth of the river, further processed and then loaded onto mast-ships for transport to shipyards in England and to other parts of the colonies.
A squared mast tree could easily be 100-120 feet long requiring mast-ships to have exta-long decking. One of these ships could transport 50 masts and the sight of a mast-ship embarking would certainly be a sight to note in one’s diary. Through Sewall’s diary we learn the mast-making industry, as well as other timber businesses, were well-established. Mast pines were felled, processed and transported to the coast for further transport to shipyards. Sawmills were operating and lumber supplies were moved over waterways.
Colony Growth and Crown Control
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was chartered in 1628. After political ups-and-downs between the colony and England, and within England itself, charters were revoked, rewritten in harsher terms and finally in 1691 a new charter was issued by William and Mary for the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
With the influx of immigrants to the new colony the domestic demand for wood grew and came into conflict with the Crown’s need for shipbuilding material. The very last section of the 1691 charter was very specific on the consequences of interfering with the Crown’s supply of mast pines:
“And lastly for the better providing and furnishing of Masts for Our Royall Navy Wee doe hereby reserve to Us Our Heires and Successors all Trees of the Diameter of Twenty Four Inches and upwards of Twelve Inches from the ground growing upon any soyle or Tract of Land within Our said Province or Territory not heretofore granted to any private persons And Wee doe restrains and forbid all persons whatsoever from felling cutting or destroying any such Trees without the Royall Lycence of Us Our Heires and Successors first had and obteyned upon penalty of Forfeiting One Hundred Poinds sterling unto Ous Our Heires and Successors for every such Tree soe felled cut or destroyed without such Lycence had and obteyned in that behalfe any thing in.”
This last section of the charter was known as the Mast Preservation Clause. Surveyors of Pines and Timber were tasked with finding and marking all suitable trees “within ten miles of any navigable waterway.” Trees were marked with three hatchet marks that formed the “King’s Broad Arrow.” Woe to any colonist found with a marked tree, or a tree that was unmarked but met the size requirements for a mast. The Mast Clause, as with most regulations limiting a vital supply, caused divisions among the colonists. Some were very much in support of supplying the Royal Navy with precious timber, others were more concerned with how they were able to sustain livelihoods with the Crown claiming the best and the most.
A New Century and Expotential Growth
Boston Mill Pond and Shipyards, 1743. Boston Public Library.
In the map above you can see that Boston bristled with shipyards. To power the sawmills and other mills in the area a damn was built to create the Mill Pond and use tidal power. As the tide went out it turned the water wheels that powered the mills. The goods made in the mills and shipyards were traded with England, other European countries and with other colonies. Moving commodities and passengers by water, both sea and rivers, was faster and more efficient than by overland route. Smaller ships made in the colonies were made for this purpose. The many shipyards also did repairs for larger ships damaged by weather or warfare. Samuel Sewall’s diary mentions several instances where a ship had lost its mast and arrived for repairs.
Using Boston as an example of the growth of the New England colony we see in 1650 the population of Boston was 2,000 and by 1742 it was 16,382. New arrivals to the colony swelled city settlements and there was also a push into more remote and rural areas. Increased populations and increased trade put more pressure on natural resources. With the crown snapping up the best of timber there was more pushback from the colonists. Poaching timber that met the measurements in the Mast Clause was a cat-and-mouse game between individual citizens, sawmill operators and the Royal Surveyors.
In New Hampshire we can get an idea of how a Mast Clause constrained the livlihood of the colonists. But first, a note about a series of taxes that created revenue for the Crown and protected the trade of goods made in England. In 1733 there was the Molasses Act, in 1764 the Sugar Act and in 1765 the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was particularly inflammatory as it required a tax on printed material that had to be on paper made in England – everything from legal documents to newspapers to playing cards. Not only was this a wooden age, it was a gambling age and a tax affecting playing cards was a low blow.
Prior to 1766 the governor of New Hampshire did not strictly enforce the Mast Clause, especially in the western portion of the colony. In 1764 the charter for incorporating Weare (by today’s roadways about 70 miles from Portsmouth) included the usual clause for reserving all white pines fit for use by the Royal Navy. New towns like Weare didn’t pay much attention to the clause and enforcement was lax. In 1766 John Wentorth became governor and he began to rigorously enforce the Mast Clause and thereby greatly increase revenue.
By this time the law had become an onerous weight on the newer towns and settlers. Prior to cutting any timber for a home or clearing any land a surveyor had to be summoned to assess and mark any pine trees suitable for the Crown’s use. A royal license also had to be paid to cut any other trees. If a settler did not follow this law he was subject to inspection and arrest for any white pine that might be found in his cabin walls. The law was unpopular from farmer to sawmill operator to minister, as none could escape paying for the use of their own trees and only after the Crown had marked and would take what was best.
Ebenezer Mudgett Has Had Enough
Royal Surveyors used the tactic of inspecting sawmills to find white pine logs of mast size, put the Kings Broad Arrow Mark on the logs and then fine the mill operator. In the winter of 1771-1772 they visted sawmills in the Piscataquog Valley and found six mills with white pine logs 15-36 inches in diameter. The owners were ordered to appear in court and pay fines. Some mill owners paid their fines but the owners from Weare did not.
Ebenezer Mudgett was the leader of the Weare group. He agreed to finally meet the sheriff and face his arrest but the night before he and others got together to plan their response.
From the archives of the Portsmouth Athenaeum.
This event became known as the Pine Tree Riot. Yes, New Hampshire had a riot. Several accounts say the rioters used pine tree switches to assault the sheriff and the number of strikes equaled the number of logs that were confiscated. Some historians think the disguises used by the Weare rioters gave the Boston Tea Party members the idea to use disguises when they held their protest the next year.
Within a few years of the Pine Tree Riot the former colonists had a country of their own and could now command payment from England or any other country for their mast trees. Business would be brisk for many years as we launched our own Navy, more parts of the world were explored and trade routes expanded and Napoleon began his campaigns.
The cone of the Eastern White Pine.
There are still some old growth stands of the Eastern White Pine in protected forests and parks from Canada to North Carolina and in the Upper Midwest. Go find one and give it a few pats.
For the denizens of New Hampshire and Maine who probably know all about the mast pine and the riot I have one more map for you. It is from 1774 and shows about the same area around the Piscataqua River as the 1665-1670 map above.
Portion of 1774 map showing the most populated areas of New England. Boston Public Library.
“Garden Gates,” The Woodworker magazine, August, 1947
“The man nowadays who is able to do a job at his own pace is one of the fortunate ones. Then to one he’ll either be a craftsman with a small workshop of his own or a man working at a hobby. A feeling of enjoyment so much more often accompanies work that is freed from outside control, when that control takes the shape of a nagging foreman or an impatient boss. The queer thing is that when these no longer have to be encountered, our own moods and temperaments want to take charge, as variable as the weather and just about as dependable. It is then that the craftsman has to assert himself and put the mood in its place, knowing very well that it will play high jinks with his work if he isn’t careful. Once he has really started, no matter how lazy or disinclined he may have felt, the odds are that the mood will recede, the work will catch hold of him and bring an enjoyment of its own.
“The pace and the manner are the things that count. If we fling ourselves into any job with a “Let’s get it over and done with” feeling, the chances are that we shall soon be running up against snags caused by own impatience. If we take it up at an even pace, then a regular rhythm of work develops, hand and eye are co-operating in friendly unison, and if we come up against difficulties we shall be all set to tackle them. At least they will not have been created by our own frenzied desire to get on, which is at the root of the most botched work.
“The sense of haste in the modern world is infectious. We must always be wanting to rid ourselves of the work in hand so that we can start something else. It may be because already we can visualise the new things as having more perfection than the old, or because we very quickly tire of a job and want novelty. Or it may all come round to the same thing, that we do not give ourselves utterly and wholly to the work we are doing, because that means putting that little bit of extra pressure on ourselves which is necessary for work of the very best kind. It is, I believe, an almost universal shirking and it keeps us working at second-best.
“And yet the opportunity is there for every man who knows how to handle a tool. Knowledge alone is not enough, skill alone is not enough, for the perfect use of them depends on what a man can give of himself. For when all is said and done he is not a precision tool, or a robot, or a machine, nor even—by nature—a machine minder. Something he is of all these things, but he has also that gift which is so utterly his own, his restless, eternal, questing spirit, which keeps him ever searching for beauty and everlastingly trying to create it. This is the power behind his technical capacity if he learns to harness it, the power by which he can attain to the sense of balance and good judgment which are among the first requisites of beauty. The rest will vary with the man himself. This is the great glory of our personality, that each individual touch is different, so that throughout the great ages of craftsmanship the work of each worker stood out from its fellows even if it was never stamped with his name. Nowadays the individual touch is swamped in mass production. But it still lives on in the small workshop and in the home, wherever there is a woodworker to remember that tools are excellent things, but that it is a man with a tool in his hand who is the hope of the world. He will always be the one to keep his own courage alight and that of his fellows, because he will have discovered some of the things he can do and know that one life is not long enough to find them all. Always there will be for him the perfection that lies in wait just round the corner, to reach which needs every ounce of the effort he can put out. And even in his failure he may pass on to his fellows those glimpses which the world will treasure, seeing in them its dearest hope.”
In March, Chris wrote a post titled “The Best Job I Ever Had.” He joined Popular Woodworking Magazine in 1996 as managing editor. I joined the magazine in 2001 as assistant editor, and then moved up to associate editor and, later, managing editor. Before Chris left for Germany he gave me some ideas for posts, and with Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney slated to join Editor and Content Director Megan Fitzpatrick and her crew in July as the new managing editor, Chris thought it might be nice if I offered a behind-the-scenes look at the job, from my perspective. So here goes. (I’m fairly certain Chris didn’t realize I have pictures.)
First, a confession: I suck at headlines. Which is why I swiped Chris’s. But the words and the sentiment are true for me as well.
Some background: I graduated from Ohio University with a magazine journalism degree in 2001. A few weeks later I moved into a sketchy studio apartment in Alexandria, Va., to write for a b-to-b mag in the printing industry. The people were great, the topic was dull and I was in love with a guy who was still in school at Ohio State University. I found an ad for an assistant editor position at Popular Woodworking Magazine, and I applied.
Remember, I was 13 at the time. (Dent is in the front.)
Steve Shanesy (editor at the time) and Chris (managing editor at the time) interviewed me. They liked my clips. They needed a wordsmith, not a woodworker. I told them about the lamp I made in junior high shop class, and that I had dropped it while working on it and, with the school year rapidly ending, I had tried to hide the dent I had made by mixing sawdust and glue, and filling it in. I told them I got a “B” in the class (which, looking back was quite generous, given my lack of skill at the lathe as well). They still hired me.
“Behind-the-scenes” can mean different things for different audiences. According to my résumé, my managing editor responsibilities looked like this:
• Responsible for day-to-day operations of a 200,000 circulation magazine that competed with six different woodworking magazines for subscribers – developed line-ups; created and maintained photography and illustration schedules; tracked status of, edited and made changes to articles; made corrections to final binder; reviewed printer page proofs; attended press checks to ensure printing quality at all hours.
• In charge of special issues – additional responsibilities included conception; developed cover lines.
• Managed approximately 40 authors, photographers and illustrators per year—negotiated, wrote and tracked approximately 100 contracts per year; in charge of manuscript submissions; established and enforced deadlines.
• Primary editor for an $83,145 manuscript budget and a $66,650 art budget.
• Wrote five features, seven how-to articles, seven profiles, two reviews and Contents page; built projects.
But honestly? I had to look all that up to remember it.
I’m only 38, but so far my years at Popular Woodworking Magazine impacted me professionally and personally more than any other job I’ve ever had (and that includes the weirdness that occurred working third-shift at Meijer’s selling jewelry to folks at 3 a.m.). I’ve spent the past week trying to pinpoint why, and I can’t. But I have some ideas.
The editors at the time insisted they were looking for a new hire with a journalism degree, not a woodworker. And while they expected me to learn the craft, just as any niche magazine editor must do, they didn’t expect me to excel at it, unlike the expectations they did have regarding the responsibilities I have on my résumé.
At the time, though, I didn’t believe them. And so I tried my damnedest to do both. All of the editors regularly pulled me into the workshop to learn. Those seven how-to articles? I built them, but with an editor guiding me every step of the way. Never was a failure laughed at or mocked (at least to my face, ha!). Instead every single one was viewed as a teaching opportunity.
One afternoon I was working on a project with Chris in his basement home shop. I forget what we were building but it involved the table saw, which I had used many times before. I don’t remember exactly what happened (maybe Chris does) but for some reason the wood drifted away from the blade. One thing I was doing right: My body was positioned not in line with the blade. Which was good, because when I realized it was all going oh-so-wrong, I looked up to see Chris, white as a ghost, waving his hands at me. I’m sure it was frantically, but I only remember it in slow motion. The kickback was so powerful that it bent the blade of one of his chisels hanging on the wall.
We stopped. I was shaking. We went to Skyline Chili for lunch. He said it would be good for me to go right back to what I was doing. So I did, with no instances of kickback this time. And he kindly refused when I asked if I could replace his chisel.
They put me into classes. I took a weeklong course at Lonnie Bird’s School of Fine Woodworking, where I built a Shaker end table. I was nervous as hell, believing that Lonnie and the fellow students would have assumptions about an editor from Popular Woodworking Magazine. But everyone was incredibly kind and respectful, and seemed to understand something that I did not: I was hired as an editor, not a woodworker, and that was OK. In fact, the only unnerving part of the week was when I tried to build a fire in the fireplace in my chilly room at the local bed and breakfast, and woke up some angry wasps.
The Shaker end table I built at Lonnie’s still sits next to my side of the bed, and has two small rings of milk stained on the top of it. I feel terribly guilty about this, every time I look at it, but in some ways, it’s fitting. That table was difficult for me to build, and took a lot of courage. But so did pumping milk and bottle feeding two twin boys in a sleep-deprived state for a year while also caring for a 2-year-old.
My children, pointing out their scars and sharing their thoughts on my past refusal to take Chris’s advice.
I, along with several editors of the magazine, built a Welsh stick chair with Don Weber. This took place shortly after my honeymoon with the guy who was studying at OSU. We currently live in a 100-plus-year-old foursquare now, and my chair sits in the entry. My kids call it “The Evil Chair.” At the time I was working on it Chris suggested I break the edges a bit more. I didn’t listen. All three of my children and my husband have scars from the times they’ve run into it. But I refuse to move it.
My house is filled with many loved treasures from my time at the magazine.
I’m fairly certain I was the only one who insisted on pictures while traveling. Christopher Schwarz and David Thiel in California, January 2003.
Then there was the traveling. We were so lucky. And as a young 20-something, the trips had a deep impact on me. Although I grew up in a family that valued and was able to travel, never before had I stayed in hotel rooms solo. And I’ve since learned that long road trips are one way to truly know another person – I knew my coworkers well.
We ate well. I, along with Steve and Al Parrish, our photographer, once ate dinner at a seafood restaurant in Boston after visiting Norm Abram for the day. They ordered raw oysters. I carefully watched them take their forks to detach the meat, pick up the oysters and slurp them down. I followed suit, pretending I knew what I was doing. I had only recently stopped being a vegetarian. (I haven’t had a raw oyster since.)
We ate burritos with Sam Maloof. Don Weber introduced me to lemon curd. Lonnie Bird introduced me to shrimp and grits. The art director, Linda Watts, who I became dear friends with (and still am) invited me to her house for movie nights where she introduced me to slightly burnt butter on popcorn—it’s delicious. Chris invited us all to his house for dinner, many times. (He’s an excellent cook.) Once we visited Eugene Sexton, on the way to something else. Sexton had a wood-drying process shrouded in mystery called ESP-90. He offered us some green beans from his garden that he said would allow us to live longer (very Tuck Everlasting-ish). I even ate some of those and as for their success, only time will tell.
As a woman in a workplace made up almost entirely of men, I was respected. My gender was never part of the conversation. Once I was helping out at our booth at a woodworking show, and a very well-known tool manufacturer had a booth next to us. They had hired a bikini-clad model whose only job was to stand with a sign that said “let me grind your wood.” I was so irked by the whole thing that the following day I told my colleagues that I was going to go over and say something to the folks who worked for the company. My fellow editors didn’t bat an eye, even though I’m fairly certain that company was an advertiser.
Celebrating the debut of Woodworking Magazine. Left to right: Steve Shanesy, Matt Bantly, David Thiel, Christopher Schwarz, Michael Rabkin, Linda Watts, myself.
The job was varied. After a day spent making editorial corrections to files and re-checking those corrections to make sure I hadn’t introduced a new mistake, I got to spend a day researching who built Pope John Paul II’s coffin. After a day spent sending contracts, writing check requests and updating our editorial calendar, I got to spend a day lugging around Al’s photo equipment two hours up north for a photo shoot at Troy Sexton’s. After a day spent reading seven manuscripts and making marks with my purple pen (we each had a different color when editing to know who to argue with when we disagreed with a change), I got to spend a day in the shop, sweeping, learning sharpening techniques or drilling so.many.holes for a Tool Test piece on cordless drills.
I often had guilt. Here I had a woodworker’s dream job and I wasn’t a (good) woodworker. I had a bit of, what I later learned was called, imposter syndrome. But with time I learned that what I had to offer was valued.
When I left and Megan became managing editor, I was in absolute awe. Here was a woman with an MA in English Literature and an exceptional knowledge of Shakespeare who poured herself into the task of learning the craft of woodworking. And only a few years in she was building the most beautiful pieces (and still is, today). She’s wicked smart and exceptionally kind. I never worked for her but still, when I was stuck in the hospital in the hell that is preterm-twin-labor-stifled-by-magnesium-sulfate, she stopped by, to visit. She’s one of my favorite people.
And Brendan, I don’t know you (yet), but after reading Megan’s post, you are a perfect fit. And know that it’s worth the move. Because editing and filing and contracting and invoicing and harping on (and on and on) about deadlines aside, this community is filled with great people. Getting to know them has been one of the great pleasures in my life. Welcome.
“I try to live right. I always try to adhere to what I think is right, and that, to me, is the most important part of creative work. So much of me goes into each piece that I make that in making each new piece, a renewal takes place. So it continues: a renewal in my commitment to my work and what I believe.” —Sam Maloof
