Transcript
pjasper: Greetings, everyone. Greetings, greetings once again. Welcome to another random -ass intro.
E Dollar Sign: ratings and salutations.
pjasper: Another live -read intro of your favorite woodworking, and not just woodworking. Woodworking and other forms of art podcast. Woodworking is bullshit.
E Dollar Sign: So inclusive.
pjasper: I'm your host, Paul Jasper, scientist by day, woodworker by night. And I'm joined by my two snarkalicious hosts.
E Dollar Sign: Oh,
Mary: What?
pjasper: Eric, Eric Curtis, full -time furniture maker and content creator, Edala Sign, according to his sign -in into our webcasting software.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, you're.
Mary: Who is also a year older, by the way, as of yesterday.
pjasper: and
pjasper: And... Oh, really, Eric?
Mary: Happy birthday.
E Dollar Sign: oh
pjasper: I didn't know that.
E Dollar Sign: Cheers friends, but you were you were in the birthday video.
pjasper: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
pjasper: Just kidding.
E Dollar Sign: I was going to say, are you are you good, bro?
pjasper: And I've reminded you about your impending mortality.
E Dollar Sign: You did. it was It was very funny. I will say, I don't know if you if either of you saw the video that Sarah stitched together.
pjasper: i did I didn't see it.
E Dollar Sign: it So for the audience, ah my girlfriend is a wonderful, supportive, loving human being and got
Mary: No.
E Dollar Sign: you know, 15 or 16 of my very favorite people to send me birthday messages and stitch them together into a ah like a four minute video. And it was delightful. It was wonderful. And also every single fucking one of you were like, hey, you're going to die.
E Dollar Sign: So it was great.
pjasper: ah
Mary: I didn't do that. I made mine positive and upbeat and very cheerful.
E Dollar Sign: It was great.
pjasper: ah Mine was like yes, so another year closer to death big guy knock knock knock you hear that knocking at the door.
E Dollar Sign: I might maybe A couple couple of my favorite moments where or one of my favorite moments was when you told like Vicki was in the video with you and you were like, you're like, you got anything to say?
pjasper: That's death ah Yeah
E Dollar Sign: And she goes, happy birthday. And you're like, that's it? That fucking sucks.
pjasper: but Insulting my wife and reminding you about your impending death.
E Dollar Sign: That's that's that's what best friends do.
pjasper: It's what I'm best at.
Mary: Wow.
pjasper: ah And our other co -hosts. I'm married to Sayee, UX designer by day and contemporary furniture heiress by night.
Mary: What?
pjasper: so
E Dollar Sign: Furniture heiress.
pjasper: What would you do? Didn't you make an Instagram account for her? Something about seductress?
E Dollar Sign: ah That's the wood seductress. Yeah. Also, wood ductress.
Mary: We're doctorous, right, or something?
pjasper: What?
E Dollar Sign: Also, there's there's a new one on the market, just so everybody knows. If you know um Sam DIY Huntress, we did drunkenly make DIY seductress the other night, which was somehow open.
pjasper: Okay.
E Dollar Sign: So we should all go follow that one as well. They'll be.
pjasper: okay
Mary: How many Instagram accounts do you have now?
E Dollar Sign: they'll be ah Not enough, not as many as I will have by the time Instagram ends.
Mary: More or less than 10?
E Dollar Sign: o It's less than 10, it's less than 10, but it is coming up on 10.
Mary: Hahahaha!
pjasper: Oh boy, all right, well, another chaotic intro. So this is, ah so as you know, we lead with a question and, but it turns out that today's question sort of led to a much larger discussion. So I'll start with the original question or the original thought that came up. Now this was contributed as I recall by Eric in our ah closed personal chat group on our phones.
pjasper: And Eric said, you know, I've seen cases where people use either highly contrasting woods or really high figured woods and they throw them together because they think that equals good design.
pjasper: Like that's enough. Like I'll just, I'll just take this black walnut. I'll pair it with a curly maple and it's golden. Or I'll take these.
Mary: Purple heart.
pjasper: Yeah, I'll take purple heart, which is going to turn brown in five years.
E Dollar Sign: Fucking purple heart. ah
pjasper: I'll take Purple Heart or I'll take you know these highly colored woods or or really crazy burl and figured woods and I'm going to mix them all together and it's going to look great. and I think we've seen many, many examples of that looking like complete shit. right ah it it Using those things doesn't necessarily guarantee like some amazing outcome. and so That was sort of the genesis of the idea. so Actually, I'm giving you a little inside view into how we sort of come up with these segment ideas. so that And all three of us have noticed that, and all three of us struggle with how do you use these things in a tasteful way to come up with good designs.
pjasper: But talking with our our first guest ever, Conrad Sauer, today, you know, him and I, admission, I talked to Conrad almost before every episode to decide kind of see what pearls he's got floating around in there.
E Dollar Sign: i I really thought you were going to say admission. I have a man crush on Conrad and I was like, yeah, no, you do buddy.
Mary: Yeah.
pjasper: Oh, that's already, already i like did I need to say that out loud?
E Dollar Sign: You do. That's a given.
Mary: ah
pjasper: Conrad. Yeah, anyway. um So we were talking about it and it it got ah us together thinking um that this is actually a much larger conversation because what are figured woods?
pjasper: Figured woods are a type of surface decoration is what they are. It's like you have a flat piece of wood. How do you make it more interesting? You could paint it. You could carve it. You could put pyrography on it. It could be a figured wood. You could put an inlay in it. You could put a pattern on it. You could do parketry, geometric patterns. on Like there's so many ways to dress up a surface with surface decoration. And so that, you know, it turns out that's just one avenue of design is like how to make something like a form that's not terribly interesting per se may look more interesting. Now there's a completely other way to think about it it is that well maybe the form is interesting and then I thought of Mary and like architectural forms and beautiful curves and Eric you know you're you're all sculptural and movement and shape
pjasper: And when you have that kind of beauty, the art the the form itself, you don't need so much surface decoration. And in fact, they can often clash.
E Dollar Sign: Uh -huh.
pjasper: And that led to the thinking, there's another axis. which is function. So actually, that's probably what most of us start with because woodworking, you know we come from a craft field, really, and function was always first and foremost. I need a stool to sit my ass. i or you know So that got me thinking about these three major axes or thrusts that we have to balance when we think about design, which is function, form,
pjasper: and flair, I guess, if you want another F word, alliteration, or, yeah, the the three F's.
E Dollar Sign: Ooh, flair. Chachkies.
pjasper: But really the third is like, you know, function, form, and surface decoration, really. And so I think what started as a piddly kind of ticky tack question about, oh, using figured woods doesn't always look that good.
pjasper: Actually, if you zoom out to 10 ,000 feet, it became a much more interesting topic.
E Dollar Sign: Well, I think it is. From my perspective, the reason that I asked the question was because I do think it's an interesting topic with a lot of depth to it. I think you flesh it out far better than I could have because you're smarter than I am. But I think the the idea that using figured woods to as a crutch for bad design is like It's a something of a natural progression in we as woodworkers, in our woodworking journeys, because you start out, most people start out, they're not gonna buy you know curly bibinga for their first project. You're gonna go to Home Depot, you're gonna buy some pine, you're gonna buy some maple, you're gonna buy some oak, whatever it is, you make a thing.
E Dollar Sign: And then you make something that's a little bit better and you learn on you know learn the ropes. And then your first inclination, if you don't have an understanding of design, if you're not ah educated in the field of design, say like Mary was, then your first inclination naturally is, well, if I buy something that's more expensive, it might make it look prettier.
E Dollar Sign: And I don't think that's unreasonable, because usually the more expensive or I should say, usually the prettier the material, the more expensive it is not always the case, but usually. So I don't think that's a flaw in thinking where I think the flaw comes in is they see that and they go, oh, that's good enough.
E Dollar Sign: And I don't have to figure out if this object is working or if it's not what's wrong with it, what's right with it, what flows, what doesn't, because, Hey, let me just distract you with the wood.
pjasper: It's a great point. um And I think it is logical to go down that progression. And I feel like if you look at Etsy, you'll see a zillion examples of fancy woods put together in a bad way offered at a cheap price.
E Dollar Sign: Mm -hmm.
Mary: A lot of river tables, you see, the the curly
pjasper: Oh, there it is.
E Dollar Sign: The river tables.
pjasper: There it is.
Mary: I mean, that's just like, it's just so much on top of so much.
pjasper: So.
E Dollar Sign: Lotta.
Mary: It's like, ah man, it's just too much when it's all combined. I for me, a really large part of using any sort of ornamentation, and then in this case, Figured Woods is about editing and balance.
E Dollar Sign: Mm hmm.
Mary: And a lot of the time, that understanding of balance is not necessarily there when you're first starting out. And we all need to learn. But you know, I think this is a good opportunity for folks to be able to, you have to remember to take a step back and be like, does this work?
Mary: Would this actually you know fit in this room? Does this is actually you know like work out for for whoever my client is, or even if it's just you? I don't know.
E Dollar Sign: That's such a hard thing to to learn though, right?
Mary: People don't do that enough.
E Dollar Sign: Like that takes a long time to figure out.
Mary: Yeah, exactly.
pjasper: a
E Dollar Sign: so i you know ah
pjasper: So Eric, how does one learn that?
E Dollar Sign: i
E Dollar Sign: I can't give everybody the path to go do the thing. Cause like, I mean, look, I think, I think we all are pretty good at design and we all took three very different paths. Right. So I think it's totally okay to find your own path. Mary went the academic route and studied architecture and design.
E Dollar Sign: ah in college. um Paul is just naturally a brilliant human being. And I think you actually are a really good example of somebody who had a natural eye for telling what wasn't right. And then you have that natural curiosity so you could dive into studying other people's work.
E Dollar Sign: and go, okay, here's what they're doing. And here are the elements I can pull and apply, which is another way like, like, that's like the traditional way to study anything really, right copying masters.
pjasper: That's really accurate, Eric.
E Dollar Sign: And I, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I think my mind is more mathematical than it is creative. And so what I had to do was to study the elements and principles of design and learn that it is a basic math equation, it's addition and subtraction. And once I learned how to manipulate those into some equilibrium, then I felt like I had ah an understanding of design where I could, you know, to Mary's word, kind of edit back a little bit and choose what element or principle I was manipulating. And that was really helpful for me.
Mary: So you you are kind of like a combination of the two of us because you did go to school for it as well, but also have that natural inclination and learning.
E Dollar Sign: i I did, I did, but when I went to school for it, I was learning both a craft and design at the same time. And I think that's borderline impossible to do.
E Dollar Sign: I think most people, myself included, have to learn one and then the other. Learn basically like how to do the thing and then how to apply other things to the thing you already know.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: um And so.
Mary: Yeah, that's true. i've Actually, now that you say that, it's like I feel like most schools lean one way or the other. Because I know that in architecture, a lot of people complained about, I think even Mira complained about how Harvard DSD in architecture school, and it's known for this, is too theoretical.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, right.
Mary: So she's, oh no, I think it was George who switched.
pjasper: All theoretical.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
Mary: And then he decided to go to MIT because he was like, I need the practical side of this and the craft side of it.
E Dollar Sign: yeah Yeah. I mean, I think by nature, you just have to lean one way or the other and everybody has different inclinations.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: This is one of the most helpful things I learned when I was teaching is that like, it doesn't matter how I learn. I will. The only thing that I can do as your teacher is give you honest information about how I figured it out and it might not resonate with you.
E Dollar Sign: And that's totally fine. And if it doesn't. It becomes incumbent upon me to help you figure out what does resonate with you, but then I no longer can relate to your experience and you have to then figure out how you learn best. That's your job as the student. My job as the teacher is to just help you figure out where you need to walk, but you need to then go walk that.
E Dollar Sign: Um, and I think some people learn better the design theory and then learning how to apply, uh, those principles through the craft. And I, and and I, and I think Paul similarly is you learn how to build things and then you learn what things you can manipulate within the boundaries of that skill set that you've now developed.
Mary: That's me.
pjasper: Hmm. Hmm.
pjasper: Yeah. I think that's a much very a very typical path for most woodworkers.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
pjasper: You learn the execution piece because that's all anyone fucking talks about. And then you come to like, m what do I want to make?
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
pjasper: And then you you pivot towards design. So i you know I sort of let us sort of go on a tangent to put the carpet for the horse talking about like figured woods and how to or like figured elements and how to balance them and how do you learn that balance.
pjasper: But I'd like to zoom back out right to this whole conversation of like, form, like architectural, sculptural form, like just the shape of the object versus surface decoration.
pjasper: Because I feel like we have a really interesting mix of people in this podcast who trend one way or the other, Mary. I feel like you are squarely, Mary, you are squarely in the architectural form camp in my, I mean, compared to me, I am not making an absolute about that.
E Dollar Sign: Sorry, Mary.
pjasper: um you are very tuned into shape and shadow and lines and you know negative space and Eric you I think you tend that way too however you also use figured woods you're kind of between the two of us and I think I'm probably on the far end of making simple shapes. Most of my boxes are quite simple in shape, but it's all about the figured woods, the brass inlays, the ornamentation, the surface decoration, you know, not clashing with the object and being tastefully done. So I feel like we have a nice, you know, sweep across the three, you know, across those two those two things, where it's like Mary's on one extreme and maybe I'm on the other extreme and maybe, Eric, you're kind of in the middle. However,
pjasper: I will tell you that thinking about this, the first thing I thought of Mary, of course I thought of Mary, some of your tables where it's all about you know shape and form, but your hobbit door was an example of ornamentation that made the piece.
E Dollar Sign: Mm -hmm.
pjasper: okay
E Dollar Sign: The piece was the ornamentation.
pjasper: It was the ornamentation.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
pjasper: And I thought, what would that, and I'm totally telling you this as it came out real time today, as I was thinking about this, what would that Hobbit case be without that ornamentation?
pjasper: It would be a circular door on a square box.
E Dollar Sign: Mm -hmm.
pjasper: That ornamentation.
Mary: Yeah, there's a reason I chose the or like the the curly ornamented door. as it put I was originally just going to do Bilbo's door, which is just a green circle with like regular wood lines, et cetera.
pjasper: Hmm.
Mary: But I was like, for an object that's small, what's even the point?
pjasper: Right. So Mary, I think funny enough, like you're you're someone who I think trends naturally towards form. And in fact, one of your most recent objects is where you chose like a surface ornamentation that actually made the piece. And Eric, you're, we've talked about this, your ponchett case.
pjasper: It is devoid of ornamentation in a way. I know it has some, I know it has some shiplaps and stuff, but it's white. It's a white canvas because that accentuates the shape, those beautiful curves and the concave, and the hips and the concavity you put in each slat.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
Mary: Those hips.
E Dollar Sign: Them hips.
pjasper: And so for someone who loves figured woods, you chose very intentionally to go away from that to allow the form to speak clearly so it's like this tension between the two.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. it it well It was very much attention in making that decision, right? Because so I think this is a good example. We can talk all of this, like. the reflecting upon the object after it's done and like why it's successful and why it's not. But when you're doing the thing in the moment, you don't know if the choice you're about to make is going to be successful or not. And that's where a lot of that that paralysis comes in. And we all we've all faced that. So that is a really good example of a thing where I
E Dollar Sign: very much lean toward wood tones. I work in wood because I think wood is a phenomenally beautiful material and I want to highlight that as much as I can, but I recognized in that moment that all of the Coves and all of the facets between the staves we're going to lose light and lose their their their highlights if I kept it in the tone of ash and so I made the decision to go white and it was really hard and I was literally thinking about this the other day ah I I find it a little bit funny ah funny I think is the best word for it, but I Constantly, I think like we've talked about it on this podcast. Other people have talked about it. Like the pawn shed cabinet might be the best object that I've made. And it is the object that looks the least amount like my normal vernacular. Like it, it stands out in my portfolio as a thing that, um, if you were to just look at a gaggle of images, wouldn't necessarily be identifiable as my work. So maybe that says a lot about my work. I don't know.
pjasper: I don't know. ah Mary, does does does that Hobbit door stand out in your portfolio as a ah ah one -off?
Mary: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you can, there's no way it doesn't. Because I don't, I usually make larger pieces, I guess. And for a larger piece, I would not want to do that. Because I try to think of like, where it's going to be living as like, like, what person's house is this going to be living in? And it's going to look insane. As much as I have left to have a full size hobbit door in my house, like,
Mary: i I think it would drive me crazy. But yeah, it's definitely a one off. But I also agree with Eric, like the those stand out to you, I wouldn't say it's my best piece.
Mary: It was definitely making it was like a making myself get get back into woodworking piece.
E Dollar Sign: I don't know
Mary: But I love it. And like just as much as everything else I've made.
E Dollar Sign: It's a good piece.
Mary: It was great.
E Dollar Sign: It's a good piece. Can I before before we move forward, can I I want to go full Mary for a half a moment and define a thing.
pjasper: Are you gonna define something?
E Dollar Sign: I do want to define a thing because because you've been you've been fluctuating back and forth between shape and form as we've talked about this.
Mary: Oh my god!
E Dollar Sign: So I do just
pjasper: Shape and form, no, shape is form in my current definition.
E Dollar Sign: Right, and so this is this is what I want to to clarify, because coming back to like elements and principles of design, and this is the thing that helped me learn how to manipulate design, um I'm always very intentional in the use of those words, because shape is a two -dimensional thing, and form is a three -dimensional thing.
pjasper: and Okay.
E Dollar Sign: And yeah, so so the way I always explain it to students is like a shape, a square is a shape, a cube is a form, right?
pjasper: Shapes two dimensional.
pjasper: Okay.
E Dollar Sign: A circle is a shape, a sphere is a form, a triangle is a shape, a pyramid is a form.
pjasper: That's one definition. Okay. I've never heard that definition before, but okay.
E Dollar Sign: Well, that' I don't know if that's the scientific definition. That's just within the the um design.
pjasper: Okay.
E Dollar Sign: I mean, Mary, do you have a different definition?
Mary: No. I mean, that sounds right. I don't know. I don't feel strongly either way.
pjasper: Mary doesn't give a shit, in other words, Eric.
E Dollar Sign: I guess, she doesn't.
pjasper: that
E Dollar Sign: ah the reason The reason that I bring that up is because we had this conversation, again, parting the kimono a little bit.
pjasper: ah
E Dollar Sign: We had this conversation in the group chat. Parting the kimono, you've never heard that?
Mary: What?
pjasper: what does What does that mean?
Mary: No? Is that sexual?
E Dollar Sign: What? I mean, a little bit. You open, I mean, if I have to spell it out for you, it means you expose yourself because you're opening the kimono.
pjasper: What what does that mean?
Mary: What?
Mary: But why a kimono?
pjasper: Partying the kimono?
E Dollar Sign: Parting the kimono.
Mary: Why not like a robe or like ah something else?
pjasper: who
E Dollar Sign: I mean, sure, but like kimono just sounds sexier.
Mary: What?
E Dollar Sign: All right. So take dropping the bath towel, like there's so many ways we could phrase it.
pjasper: um What happened?
E Dollar Sign: I don't know what you want me to say. It's just the word I chose in that moment.
Mary: ah You're trying, you're saying this like it's a commonplace phrase.
E Dollar Sign: Parting the kimono.
E Dollar Sign: I didn't make it up. I've heard that.
Mary: What?
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
Mary: All right, all right, move go on, go on.
E Dollar Sign: so So putting an our dicks on the table, um I think.
pjasper: Okay, anyway.
Mary: Excuse me, excuse me.
E Dollar Sign: i don't even remember I don't even remember what I was about to say anymore.
pjasper: Mary, you don't have to, Mary, you don't have to do that. Well, you were being a little, you were being a little bitch about my use of the word shape and form is what you were doing.
E Dollar Sign: ah
E Dollar Sign: Oh, all right.
pjasper: I don't give a, no, I don't fuck what.
E Dollar Sign: All right. All right. No, no, no, no, no. I do want to be a little bitch about it. That's fine. you We can we can I'm not trying to nitpick. But the reason that I bring that up is because um when we're talking about like, but well, yeah, but only when we're not speaking in public body, that's just like a you and me thing.
pjasper: You're a little bitch.
E Dollar Sign: ah So the function form in surface decoration, right? These are the three branches that we're discussing.
pjasper: Yes, yes, yes.
E Dollar Sign: And I think it's When we talk about like surface decoration, shape, et cetera, et cetera, the form and the function are inextricably linked, at least in furniture.
E Dollar Sign: right like the If you make a table, ah the table has to have a flat surface for things to sit on.
pjasper: Hmm. Good point.
pjasper: Good point.
E Dollar Sign: And that alters the form. It doesn't necessarily alter the shapes on the form.
pjasper: Hmm.
E Dollar Sign: You can do marquetry, parquetry, paint, et cetera.
pjasper: or this the surface decoration. look ah let let Let's use the term surface decoration, because way I introduced it as surface decoration.
E Dollar Sign: Exactly. Exactly. Okay, okay. Okay, that's totally fine.
pjasper: But that's a great point. That's function and and form are inextricably linked often.
E Dollar Sign: Often, at least to an extent.
pjasper: Not always, but yeah that's a great point.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. But even even even though the function of, say, a painting, right?
pjasper: I hadn't considered that.
E Dollar Sign: like So we're going to say, well, a painting doesn't have a function.
pjasper: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: That's one of the definitions of a painting. Well, I would argue that it might have a function in that you have a giant blank space on a wall that you're trying to fill with ornamentation.
pjasper: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: And so its function is to fill that space.
pjasper: That's good.
E Dollar Sign: And so that limits exactly what it can and can't do.
pjasper: No, that's a great point about them being inextricably linked. I love that Eric. Good. Another fucking Eric shoot from the hip. Great point.
E Dollar Sign: I got, I got, I get one in episode.
pjasper: That's so good.
E Dollar Sign: I'm out now, I'm done.
pjasper: God damn, you always get me. I swear you always get me. Okay, so one of the things I've noticed about form and surface decoration is that they have to balance each other. And let's talk for a moment about ah striking the right balance. So for example, if you have a very, very highly figured wood, and I mean, it's like eye popping, jaw dropping, wild,
pjasper: you're not going to carve that probably you're not going to do an exquisite carving because it'll just get lost you won't see the carving yeah yeah it it just both of the things would fail you would lose the figuring and you'd lose the carving so it's like two two rights would make a wrong in in essence and then there's the opposite which is
Mary: Thank you.
pjasper: if you had let's say a beautiful architectural sweeping curve or arch and you mucked it up with like carving or pyrography and it just would take away your eye tracing down those lines in the shadowing right so those are two extreme examples of where you'd have one and wouldn't want the other right so you know and I guess if from my own work, i've seen you know i I tend to go more towards like the highly surface decoration, so less on the form.
pjasper: But occasionally, I will move more into form. For example, like the the jewelry coffins. like That coffin shape is pretty ornate, and I put carvings all around the edge of it.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
pjasper: But when I did that, I blackened the background. because it was cur its green curly maple. And i wanted to see the I wanted the carvings to speak clearly, so I had to make the black the the background black to try and negate that competition. So how do each of you find that balance between form and surface decoration, or the interplay of the two? How do you how do you strike that balance? Mary, why don't you go first?
Mary: Oh, well I don't. That's kind of the answer.
pjasper: ah
Mary: I don't use figured woods that much. One, because yeah I don't really want to spend the money on it because I make larger pieces. ah And two, because
E Dollar Sign: That's totally reasonable.
Mary: So the way I approach designing a piece of furniture comes obviously from the architectural side where I think about it as what is its place within a larger environment and when I think of a piece that I'm designing I don't want attention and like this might be kind of crazy to people but I don't want attention to focus on specific details of a piece I wanted to focus on the overall form and how it fits within the environment itself and a lot of the time yes that manifests in larger kind of more sweeping curves or um shapes a lot of the time I focus a lot on negative space that's kind of the one of the things that I think about the most when I'm designing a piece is the negative space
Mary: um So I don't really do use that many figured woods because I would prefer the the viewer to focus on the form and shape of the piece as a whole.
Mary: as opposed to smaller details. um That being said, I do appreciate it. I just haven't had the opportunity to create these pieces. If I did smaller pieces, like all the time, I think I'd probably get more into it, to be honest, because I think, how do you make something smaller actually interesting? And a lot of the time that comes through this. Yeah.
pjasper: So Mary, that's a great point. And it's something I wanted to bring up eventually, but you brought it up, which is scale. So for some reason, and Eric, you can, you know, elaborate on this too.
pjasper: For some reason, and it is my experience, small things, figured woods on small things looks so fucking good.
pjasper: They look precious.
E Dollar Sign: It's because it's not too much of a good thing.
pjasper: They look,
Mary: Yeah, it's it's not too overwhelming, which is
pjasper: They look ornate, like less is more, right?
E Dollar Sign: Have you, have you ever had that, like, you go to a good meal at a great restaurant and then you get dessert and you're like, Oh, I've heard. so And you, you take a few bites and you're like, Holy shit is this rich.
E Dollar Sign: And when, and when you only have four or five bites on the plate, you're like, Hmm, that was, that was maybe the best dessert I ever had.
pjasper: Right.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: When they give you a bowl of that, you're disgusted by it. Like it is, you know, like it it is that thing of just like, it's too much.
pjasper: Oh, Eric, what a great metaphor.
E Dollar Sign: It's good, but it's too much.
pjasper: Brilliant analogy. That is such a good analogy.
E Dollar Sign: um Thank you. ah Also, ah Mary, i'm gonna I want to push back on what you said about you don't really have a balance or a scale because you don't use figured woods. like That is your balance. Your balance is 95 % form, and 5 % figured or material or whatever it is, but but the emphasis is on the form.
E Dollar Sign: So balance balance, not in like a a scale, like Lady Liberty kind of scale, but like as a sliding scale, it's it's all the way to one side.
Mary: Yeah, for sure.
Mary: Mm -hmm.
pjasper: All right, Eric, where are you and oh, sorry, go ahead.
Mary: Yeah, definitely.
pjasper: mary Yeah.
Mary: Oh, no, I was just gonna say like when I ah design a piece, I think about the form and the and like the way I want it to feel.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
Mary: But the last thing I actually think about is the kind of what I want to make it in because in my mind, I just generally know do I want to be dark? Do I want to be light? Usually I like light because I think that it reflects the rest of the room in the environment really well as opposed to drawing in light.
Mary: But yeah, anyway, that's all I had.
pjasper: So Mary, I actually, and we're going to get to Eric's balance, right? Because ah that's obviously what I want to hear about next. But Mary, I actually had, you know, Conrad said something today about form and I want to see how you react to the statement.
pjasper: So I was talking to my man crush earlier and um what one of the things he said.
E Dollar Sign: Our man crush as a podcast. Thank you
pjasper: ah Well, no, one of the things he said about form, and I thought this was a really interesting way to think about it, is if it's a good form, and we took one of his planes, for instance, right? You know, he's an infill plane maker. He's like, if the form is good, if the shape is good, I could put a plane infill I could put a hot meaning like the wood.
pjasper: I could put highly figured wood in there. I could put plain wood in there and they would both look good because the overall shape and form and it just works. It's just a beautiful form and it will tolerate a highly figured wood.
pjasper: It will tolerate a plain wood.
E Dollar Sign: Tolerate is an interesting word to use there.
pjasper: Well, sorry, sorry.
E Dollar Sign: No, no, no. i like but But I don't think it's wrong.
pjasper: No, that was that was me.
Mary: Except.
pjasper: That was my work.
E Dollar Sign: I don't think it's wrong, right? like that i Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the point that Conrad's making is the design of the object overall is the most important component in how the material fits within that design.
E Dollar Sign: It can tolerate ah variances.
pjasper: Sorry, he I think I'm misrepresenting it. He's more like, if it's a really good form of design, anything would look good in it. Not tolerate. Tolerates is a little negativity, but any type of wood could look good in that. And that's sort of a litmus test for whether the form itself is strong enough to like play with a variety of woods. like how do you what Mary, what's your... Eric, do you want to react first? Go ahead.
E Dollar Sign: No, I guess i guess the the way that I was thinking of the word tolerate there, and I think you explained it really well, is just like the way that a structure tolerates tension or compression, right?
E Dollar Sign: So like if if it's done, if it's designed well with all of these things in mind, then it can bear a certain load without failure, right?
pjasper: Okay.
pjasper: Okay, I get it. Yeah, yeah.
E Dollar Sign: Mary.
pjasper: What do you think, Mary?
E Dollar Sign: Now the architecture of brain, she's like, fuck you guys.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: Stop talking about tension and load.
Mary: I'm not commenting on that, but... ah Don't love that at all.
pjasper: Open your kimono, Mary.
E Dollar Sign: yeah
Mary: Oh my god.
pjasper: I don't know why Eric said that
E Dollar Sign: I don't know, but if there's a sound bite that's gonna get clipped from this episode, it's false saying, open your kimono, Mary.
Mary: Oh, I understand. I definitely understand where Connor's coming from. I would, again, though, emphasize scale because I can think of just so many examples from like, yeah, yes, yes, I agree in some, you know, in some examples.
pjasper: yeah
Mary: But in other ways, it's like, I know, it's just too much. And also, of course, it's personal preference, like something that's too much for someone else is going to be like, you know,
pjasper: No, but scale.
Mary: Yeah, something i sorry, the something else too much for me could be fine for someone else.
pjasper: Scale, no.
Mary: So like scale for me is probably the most important thing.
pjasper: it It's funny you said that because i so I shot back to Conrad with a picture of a very large dresser entirely in quilted maple and it looked like it had a disease.
pjasper: It looked awful.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a fair point.
pjasper: It looked like it had smallpox. it was It was like it triggered a feeling of disgust. And so scale is everything with these figured woods.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
pjasper: Small scale.
Mary: Yeah, and I think that... People can get away with it a lot more with small scale, but like I i saw, I forget forgot who it was, um I saw some like really, really crazy cabinet or dresser that was beautifully made. But like, and like, ever in my mind, it's like so much respect, crazy craftsmanship, etc. But like, what room is this possibly gonna live in, in which this just doesn't look so out of place? So something that's heat like a larger piece of furniture,
Mary: where it's just off the walls ornamentation, figuring, et cetera. i'm like it's just It's just so much to handle. like I don't know.
pjasper: Yeah.
Mary: I guess that it could be my philosophy of trying to understand where things are placed in their environments.
pjasper: Where's that going to live?
Mary: But for something that big, I just don't know.
E Dollar Sign: who's Who's the guy who does like the super textured, usually black, chest to drawers, armoires, Caleb something?
Mary: Oh, Casey?
pjasper: cal Caleb Phenomenal.
E Dollar Sign: Caleb Woodard, yes.
Mary: Oh, Kate.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. His work is phenomenal. he's He's incredible at what he does. And his his his surface decoration, his forms, that it's beautiful.
E Dollar Sign: It's 11 out of 10. I would never have that in my house. Like, I don't know what am I going to do with it? Where is it going to go? Like to to the point of scale, they're, they're physically imposing pieces and they're visually heavy.
pjasper: These are for up like, you know, Manhattan high rises where the apartment or the condo looks more like a museum, honestly.
E Dollar Sign: Of course, of course, of course.
Mary: Yeah, everything else around it matches that aesthetic.
pjasper: Yes.
Mary: And like, if it's just a one off piece in your house, like, that's gonna stick out like a sore, sore thumb.
E Dollar Sign: Of course, but I think what happens early on in in regards to Figured Woods specifically is like Caleb has the skill of somebody who's been doing it for whatever 30 years or however long he's been doing it. Nobody is going to match his skill anytime soon without putting in decades of work.
E Dollar Sign: And so what we often do early on is we go, holy shit, I want to be Caleb. How can I get closer to what Caleb is? Because the thing that he's doing is gorgeous, but I don't have the skill to do it.
pjasper: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: So I'm going to try to supplement that with highly figured material and see if I can get there. And then we learn that that doesn't get us any closer to Caleb. That just means we made a shitty chest of drawers out of curly purple heart and I like.
pjasper: so So Eric, you know, I've noticed that certain woods, ah certain figured woods, oh, I should have said this earlier in the episode, I'm sorry. What I meant to say earlier in the episode, just as a small aside, is like if you're not a woodworker, if you're into ceramics, or if you're into glass, like there's parallels to everything we're talking about here.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. Yeah.
pjasper: It doesn't have to be figured wood. It could be like speckled clay or like a wild underglaze, right?
E Dollar Sign: Oil paint versus acrylic paint, like whatever it is.
pjasper: it Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
pjasper: So yeah, so for all of our non, I'm sorry, because this is the thing that the medium, the three of us are most familiar with. But for all of you non woodworkers, like, I think the principles extend, regardless of medium.
E Dollar Sign: Mm hmm.
pjasper: Okay, so that was my small side.
E Dollar Sign: Agreed.
pjasper: But back to the question. So Eric, one thing I noticed is that even within figured woods, as a general umbrella term, there's loud, and there's more quiet.
E Dollar Sign: Mmhmm. Mmhmm.
pjasper: So for example, like, You know, I don't know if any of you are familiar with like curly maple or Corellian birch or bird's eye maple like it. It's so like the pattern is so jarring that if you make something in in that in that would like from across the room.
pjasper: ah you're It's gonna scream at you, okay? So Mary, back to your point of size and what room it lives in, right? Whereas a figured walnut, because it's a dark brown cappuccino espresso, it's got this subtleness to it that is like, hey baby, how you doing?
pjasper: I'm cool.
E Dollar Sign: Well, and it also in fairness, that's yeah I it's a great point that you're making, right?
pjasper: it's what You know what I mean? like
E Dollar Sign: So lighter woods tend to reflect more everything's about light, lighter woods will reflect more light. And so those undulations in the in the the curl become louder.
E Dollar Sign: And it feels like this bright golden thing. It's like, you know, walking into somebody's apartment and everything is gold plated. You're like, Holy Jesus Christ, like, are you?
pjasper: I only know one person who added that.
E Dollar Sign: Cool. Yeah, I know as and I was gonna make a small penis joke, but I feel like that's already like we know ah ah okay um But but a ah Dark material is gonna absorb more light so the undulations become harder to see however That doesn't necessarily mean that it's less busy Because number one that darker material is gonna have a lot more visual weight to it So it's gonna absorb that light and become this black hole somewhere in the room, but also like
pjasper: ah
pjasper: Not time. yeah Not time for that.
Mary: Yep.
E Dollar Sign: one of the um kind of biggest mistakes I consistently made earlier on in my career is walnut burl. Like it's it's fairly readily available.
pjasper: Hmm.
E Dollar Sign: So you could get it, you can veneer with it. And it's really interesting. But it's so busy.
pjasper: Hmm.
E Dollar Sign: It's just so difficult to do anything like genuinely elegant with, right?
pjasper: It is.
pjasper: I agree, Eric. People offer me burl.
E Dollar Sign: It's it's hard.
pjasper: People ask me, do you want to buy this burl? And I have a lot of burl already in my shop.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, I've got sheets of it.
pjasper: And i don't it's so hard to design with because you have to have restraint and discipline and only certain sizes.
E Dollar Sign: Sheets of it. awesome
pjasper: And I i wind up not going through that much. of it I love it when I use it. It's it's so it's like jaw -droppingly beautiful, but you can only use it on very certain applications.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: Well, it's like, I mean, this isn't Walnut, but the, the Stadia boxes that you made, right? And the one that I have is ah a maple burl. Yeah. And it's gorgeous.
E Dollar Sign: It's beautiful. It's, it's lovely, but it is that, that issue of scale where like you can hold it in your hands and it feels like it has a certain gravitas to it in spite of its smallness.
E Dollar Sign: Whereas if you had made that, you know, a blanket chest, you'd be like, what the fuck are you doing, dog?
pjasper: What is this abomination?
E Dollar Sign: ah Right, what is this? You just hollowed out a ah tree. Like, what happened? It's too much.
Mary: isnt It's interesting because so when I took my parents to Nagashima and there was burl there, my parents have no understanding of like what wood even is, basically.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
Mary: And they saw the burl and they're like, that's not wood, right? like That doesn't look like wood that we've seen. Because they just have no concept or like understanding of like there's different types types of grain.
E Dollar Sign: Right.
Mary: They don't even know like the difference of like tree species.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
Mary: like different colors etc so like they saw the bro and they're like wow this is really gorgeous but like is this wood it doesn't even look like familiar to my eye you're welcome excellent
E Dollar Sign: This is a really weird stone.
pjasper: Mary.
pjasper: Mary, this is the best segue ever, by the way. you du it's not even It's not even planned. So I actually prepared a small segment on the science behind Burl's and Figured Woods.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, you did. Okay, all right, all right.
pjasper: i can't That was like the last thing we had to get to. And Mary, you like, you like teed me off, like unbelievably. I was like, I can't believe she's saying this right now. So
Mary: You're welcome.
pjasper: You know, there's been, so there's been a lot of consternation among woodworkers about why is one tree figured or curly or burly and the next one isn't.
pjasper: So I did a literature review to try and drill down to like, what is the truth? Well, like, what do we know about these figured trees? By the way, do you guys want to guess what percentage of trees they are?
pjasper: So what percentage of a, and now I know it's going to vary between species, blah, blah, blah.
E Dollar Sign: Ooh.
E Dollar Sign: Sure, sure, sure.
pjasper: Like ah let's, let's give just a rough estimate. Is it what percent?
E Dollar Sign: Of, of how many trees in a given species have figure.
pjasper: Yes, out of a like let's say out of so many maple trees, how many of them are figured? ah Why don't you give it just a rough estimate? just just let's listen just get a okay it's well and in I think in maple it is, in some species it's as high as 10, but that's the highest you'll ever get.
E Dollar Sign: Six percent.
Mary: Oh, I was gonna say 10?
pjasper: It's usually about 0 .1%.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm Darn you Wow really really part in the kimono as to why it's so expensive, huh?
Mary: Oh wow.
Mary: Really?
pjasper: One in 10 ,000 trees have figured, usually.
Mary: Wow. That's why it's so expensive.
pjasper: ah Eric, stop it with the kimono!
E Dollar Sign: I'm making that our first official t -shirt
pjasper: pardoning me
Mary: I don't like this at all.
pjasper: very
E Dollar Sign: if if a If anybody's watching the the video feed, you just need to watch Mary's face when I say that in the epic frown face that she has.
pjasper: Mary, can you give the viewers an epic frown for the Patreon? Yeah, look at that. That is the most epic frown.
E Dollar Sign: is If you just think of the frown emoji, it's literally that.
Mary: It's a perfect semicircle.
pjasper: Okay, so ah yes, so it turns out they're pretty rare, one in a thousand, one in 10 ,000 typically. Now that's for figured trees like that's like Curl and Mr. Birch, right?
pjasper: Okay, so ah people like to ask, well, is it genetic? Can I take a figured tree and take it's like acorns or somehow, you know, whatever method it propagates and can I grow little baby figured trees from it?
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
pjasper: And it turns out that they've tested this. And I didn't know this prior to today. It turns out some the answer is yes and some the answer is no.
E Dollar Sign: Really? Really?
Mary: Hmm.
pjasper: So it turns out it depends on the type of figuring. So, for example, there's ah there's reports from the 1950s of Masur Birch. I think, you know, Birch has this bizarre mutation that we call the Corellian Birch or Masur Birch. It looks like clouds in the sky. It's like all a disorganized grain and it's got like these bark inclusions.
pjasper: And apparently, they've shown that that can be like you can take the parent, you can propagate it, and the children trees have it like 100 % of the time.
E Dollar Sign: No shit.
Mary: Hm.
E Dollar Sign: Huh.
pjasper: So that is a genetic, heritable ah figure mutation. There are, then I read about another case. This was the really interesting case. It was in Walnut. Okay. So in 1926, there was a huge Walnut tree um found in Ada, Michigan. I don't know if any of you live near Michigan, Ada, Michigan, but whatever. In 1926, this guy named George Lamb identified this magnificent huge walnut tree.
pjasper: It was curly through the sapwood into the heartwood and the heartwood was so beautifully straight and but curl all through it like it was a magnificent tree.
pjasper: They estimate that by today's standards if you've veneered this tree it would have been worth over a hundred thousand dollars. All right just that one tree alone.
Mary: Wow.
pjasper: and And we call it like Lamb's Curly Tree, like ah George Lamb is the guy who, and so it's called Lamb's Curly Tree.
E Dollar Sign: Lambs curly tree. I gotta look at this No, you can usually see I'm trying to Okay, I'm listening I'm here I'm here for you
pjasper: Okay, so what happened?
Mary: I have a dumb, wait, I have a dumb question. How do they know if it's curly? Do they take a core sample, I guess?
pjasper: they I mean, that that tree was harvested, by the way. It was completely harvested.
Mary: Oh, it was.
pjasper: Yeah, so it was curly throughout. There's pictures of it on the internet if you, Lamb's Curly Walnut.
Mary: Oh.
pjasper: If any of you want to Google that right now, feel free. Okay. So, but, but Eric, I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose you to tune back in. All right. So it turns out that they took like certain tissue from that tree and were able to propagate it into three other trees. Both of you get off your goddamn computers, Mary. I can see you typing.
Mary: okay i'm done
E Dollar Sign: She's bad for the person who literally spends her days pretending to listen to meetings while doing other things on the internet. You're really bad at that.
pjasper: Okay, so they took tissue, ah propagated it from that tree into three other trees and that those three progeny trees were allowed to grow to about 30 years of age because figure does relate to age.
Mary: Okay, I'm done.
pjasper: it needs The tree needs to be a certain size and age to actually manifest the figure. And they tested the three baby trees. Now, how do you know they're baby trees? Because there's a lot of consternation.
pjasper: Oh, maybe it's not really. up Well, they actually did genetic testing on the baby trees. They did, you know, microsatellite DNA so ah sequencing and compared it to the original and they showed that.
E Dollar Sign: I totally know what that means so Nerd
pjasper: Well, don't worry about it.
Mary: microsatellite.
pjasper: Yeah, it's called microsatellite DNA yeah sequencing. No, it just it just it proves it proves that the you are not the father says more.
pjasper: And this gives you are the father. OK, they did DNA testing and they found that these trees are undeniably the progeny clones of the original lamb tree.
E Dollar Sign: What question?
pjasper: And what percent of go ahead.
E Dollar Sign: Uh, so they took already living like saplings, I assume, and then injected the DNA or grafted something into it.
pjasper: i the they No, no, no. they They can take a certain type of wood off the tree and graft it or propagate it somehow.
E Dollar Sign: Okay. Okay.
pjasper: it's It's in the paper. it's in the i'
E Dollar Sign: Okay.
pjasper: But upon genetic testing, you know, 30, 50 years later, because this was in 1957, that they started like, in in I mean, this tree was harvested in 1926, they had the tissue, and they were somehow able to propagate it.
E Dollar Sign: Mm hmm.
pjasper: And this paper is only from 2015.
E Dollar Sign: Oh, damn.
pjasper: So this is like, almost a century later, right? Because the tree, the baby trees took a bunch of time to grow.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
pjasper: Of the three that were genetically identical to their original lamb curly walnut, how many of them had figure?
E Dollar Sign: Three.
Mary: One.
E Dollar Sign: It's going to be two.
pjasper: one, one, and it was in just a little section of it.
E Dollar Sign: Really.
pjasper: It wasn't even much, and they were clones, literal genetic copies. So so what that says, Eric, I'm sure it was probably about 80 to 100, and the the you know the babies were probably 30 plus, 30 something.
E Dollar Sign: So how, how old, how old was the original tree when they harvested it?
E Dollar Sign: Okay.
E Dollar Sign: Okay.
pjasper: Now, Eric, you're gonna raise a caveat that you know ill maybe you know given more years, they'd
E Dollar Sign: No, no, I was just, yeah I would let finish your point. I was just curious.
pjasper: Okay, but the point is, curl in walnut does not appear to be a heritable trait where you could just take a sapling or take the wood of one, clone it, and you're gonna get beautiful throughout the heartwood curl in the progeny.
pjasper: So sometimes it is heritable, and sometimes it's not, which speaks to a larger issue because when you say, well, what is figured wood?
Mary: Interesting.
pjasper: It's like a, it's like a, aberration of what you normally see.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
pjasper: And that can come from a genetic ah predisposition, just like humans. right right that It could be a genetic ah abnormality.
E Dollar Sign: Mm -hmm, mm -hmm.
pjasper: It can be ah a an environmental, like wind, right? When trees flex, it compresses the grain, and then it stretches the grain, and then it's...
E Dollar Sign: like a crotch at a branch. Those fibers are always going to curl underweight.
pjasper: Exactly. It could be so iron in the water. We know iron makes dark lines in walnut, right?
E Dollar Sign: Mm.
pjasper: Dark striations if there's a lot of iron content in the water. It could be, and I remember this, I'll never forget this, this tree that ah Mr. Z Earth, a friend of mine ah told me about, the entire core of the tree was rotten, which means all the weight was compressed on the outer sapwood.
E Dollar Sign: and
pjasper: And it turned into like crinkled maple. It looks like a topographical map. it's the most wild maple I've ever seen and it was a mechanical thing the core couldn't support the weight because it was all rotten and all that weight sandwiched the wood like an accordion and it got this beautiful figuring through it so you know I think this is why no one in the woodworking world can give you a straight answer because it's not one answer It depends, it sometimes it's genetic, sometimes it's genetic and environmental, other times it's purely environmental and it depends on the species, it depends on the location, it depends on you know where you know what type of wood we're talking. So I think that's why there's so much confusion about figured woods. And the last piece is what is burl tissue? Burl tissue is essentially
pjasper: a benign tumor on a tree. So I don't know if any of you have a benign tumor.
Mary: It looks like it.
E Dollar Sign: ah
pjasper: um I have a little lipoma on my shoulder like this little bump, right, which is a little fat tissue, right.
E Dollar Sign: How is that?
E Dollar Sign: I'd show you but I'd have to part the kimono.
pjasper: And so
pjasper: So burl tissue is essentially an irregular bud of the the growth of the tree that just keeps getting covered. And it can't come to it can't come out to form a new branch or a new you know set of leaves. And it just keeps it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And it grows through every season. It's not seasonal. It grows uncontrollably in every season. And it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
E Dollar Sign: So the way I usually describe it to students, and I'm, I'm asking you if you would agree or disagree with me on this, uh, is I usually tell them like, yeah, like it's a cancerous growth. I usually just say like, it's like an ingrown toenail, like it just kind of like curled around and then didn't know what to do.
pjasper: No. All right. So it's it's a cancerous growth, meaning the tissue is growing in an uncontrolled fashion, but it does not kill the tree.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
pjasper: So if it killed the tree, we call that malignant in humans, right? You have malignant cancer and it kills you.
E Dollar Sign: Hmm.
pjasper: And then there's benign cancer and it just kind of sits there and doesn't do anything to you.
E Dollar Sign: Okay.
pjasper: It's just like a bump, right?
E Dollar Sign: All right.
pjasper: like and we we know Yeah, it's like a benign, so it's it's basically a benign form of cancer on a tree, essentially.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
pjasper: It's a growth, but it doesn't kill the tree.
E Dollar Sign: Okay. I guess that's it. That's a fair, uh, distinction. The reason I usually shat away from the cancer analogy is because then people immediately think that it's going to kill the tree. So they're like, well, we have to cut it off.
pjasper: No, it's a, well, you have benign and malignant, right?
E Dollar Sign: I'm like, no, you don't like it'll be fine.
pjasper: manign Malignant kills you and benign doesn't, yeah, so.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. This is why I'm not a doctor.
pjasper: But what's so beautiful about burl is that the tissue is so disrupted and so, like the grain goes in every direction. It's swirling and it's it's got bark and it's got heartwood and it's got curl and it's got it's just so cool, but you only get that through a disruption of the normal biological process.
E Dollar Sign: The problem with a burl from a design standpoint is you can't book match it without discovering a face.
Mary: That's true.
E Dollar Sign: It's impossible. we are We are hardwired to see patterns and specifically facial patterns in every single time I've bookmatched a burl.
Mary: Yep.
E Dollar Sign: I'm like, this is the one. This one's just going to be beautiful. It's going to look like a kaleidoscope. And then you look at it from another angle and you're like, God damn it, there's the evil face.
pjasper: Well, to all the listeners, that's a word of warning. Don't part the kimono and don't and don't book match your burl.
E Dollar Sign: Yep. Yeah.
pjasper: Alright, we're at the 52 minute mark. It's probably time for us to pivot to our next segment. so We are going to ah pivot to something I think that's relevant today.
pjasper: We've had a lot of bad news in the world recently with ah the hurricane Helen, Helen, who's you know come through and the the new one that's brewing in the in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
Mary: In Florida.
pjasper: Yeah, it's just scary as hell.
Mary: Yeah.
pjasper: And all the divisive talk about politics, we thought, why don't we let the segment be something positive.
pjasper: So we're going to talk about, we're going to call it inspiration station today.
E Dollar Sign: love that
pjasper: We're going to talk about something that has, ah you know, perked us up or made us a little happier. We need to spread a little bit of a little bit of good juju.
E Dollar Sign: I love that. I want somebody to cross stitch inspiration stations so that we can put it above Paul's fireplace.
pjasper: So who wants to go first? Who wants to talk about something that lit you up, made you feel good this week?
pjasper: Are you all, you're thinking of your answers, yeah.
Mary: trying to think yeah or thinking about yeah
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. Um, well, here's, here's what I'll say. ah So on Sunday was my birthday, as we already discussed, and at the ah ah several of my friends were coming into town on Friday to do some things. And then What ended up happening is as word spread that sunday was my birthday.
Mary: Hmm, trying to think. Yeah, I'm thinking about, yeah.
E Dollar Sign: ah People stayed longer and more folks came down and we ended up having a little kind of birthday bash now i am i will say this i am not one to celebrate my birthday it's not a thing that i really care about um and i don't.
E Dollar Sign: I draw enough attention to myself in my day to day that I don't feel necessary ah or or good about drawing extra attention to myself around my birthday.
Mary: True.
E Dollar Sign: um But I will say.
Mary: But weren't you knocking on my door at midnight the night before being like, it's my birthday, Barry. So I seem to remember that.
E Dollar Sign: Was I? Was I doing that? If I was, ah I was not of a sober mindset. I wasn't, folks. ah But I will say that I felt very loved by my friends and and you know all the texts that I got and in phone calls that I got and folks coming in um you know just to to spend the day was a really wonderful thing.
pjasper: That's nice.
Mary: Nice.
pjasper: I like that.
Mary: Um, okay. I'll go. So inspiration station. This is not woodworking related per se, but I have been, um, filming myself over this last build cause I wanted to actually do something, like create something and document it for myself.
Mary: And I have been diving deep into this rabbit hole of YouTube, like cinematic bloggers and just like,
pjasper: Hmm.
Mary: this art of storytelling, the art of filmmaking, and I'm really, really inspired by all these filmmakers. And a lot of them are, um I would actually classify them as like filmmakers who happen to YouTube or who happen to vlog because the way they approach it is like such an interesting art of filmmaking and storytelling and like cinematography, color grading, music, like every single aspect of it.
Mary: Because I think a lot of my world and a lot of our friends, we live in this world of just like, we're doing YouTube for the sake of like trying to, you know, make content, get word out there, e etc. But it always feels kind of like a burden, I guess. And what I really like about these people is that they genuinely love it and they're doing it for the reasons because they want to create these stories to tell to the world.
Mary: And they do it in an aesthetic way, obviously. That's kind of that's why I was so that drawn to them.
E Dollar Sign: That's kind of your thing.
Mary: But like it's also super inspiring to see YouTubers who are like genuinely really, really passionate about filmmaking. And it's making me like want to be more inspired and get into it.
Mary: So I've been enjoying that.
E Dollar Sign: Are you going to take up another hobby?
Mary: yeah Well, the amount of time that I've been spending on these videos, it is reminiscent of when I enter a new hobby. And like I'm buying you know like lenses.
Mary: I have access to to like filmmaking people through work. I've been bugging them a lot. It's starting to encroach on a new hobby, unfortunately, which I don't have time for.
E Dollar Sign: Is Mary about to become a YouTuber?
pjasper: Mary, I've noticed you've been talking to the camera more on some of your videos.
Mary: Well, I'm gonna...
E Dollar Sign: She has. She has.
pjasper: Just so everyone knows, Mary was like, I never talked to the camera, Paul, never.
Mary: I...
E Dollar Sign: Uh -huh.
E Dollar Sign: Oh, she was very much an elitist about it.
Mary: I don't like to do it, but seeing these people, I'm like, oh, there's a way that to do it where it ah where I would feel comfortable putting it into a video. So it depends how you frame it.
E Dollar Sign: who Who are some of these YouTubers that you're pulling inspiration from?
Mary: There's one girl I really like, Life of RZA. She's just this Canadian girl, and she literally just YouTubes her life, but she does it in such a beautiful way. and her so Her choice of like music and like sound effects, everything is gorgeous. Another girl is Natalie Lynn, who is 22. 20 years old, I think like so young, but like an incredible eye for cinematography and storytelling and she does it with like the most basic equipment too. um But it's it's like apparently this new it's called New Wave YouTube. I think it's like young YouTubers all in their I think like young like 20s 30s and it's all just like considered cinematic v blogging. It's a whole thing. I don't know.
E Dollar Sign: So so i've I've always been, I don't mean to to to pick on this person in any way.
pjasper: Hmm.
E Dollar Sign: this is They're making you happy and inspiring you, and they're doing a wonderful job of that, and I'm grateful for that.
pjasper: I love it.
E Dollar Sign: i I'm always very curious about like the arcs and trajectories of trends and styles.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: um And so just like Kaiser kind of is in a side example, I watched Deadpool and Wolverine ah last night, which by the way, is fucking hilarious.
Mary: Oh, nice. Yep.
E Dollar Sign: um But what was really interesting to me, I hate. nostalgia baiting. Like it makes me really angry that there are no new ideas and people are just like, Hey, remember Aladdin?
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, we we did it again. Like that's not you're not doing anything interesting. But what they did was ah in that movie, I saw it start to turn meta and it started to turn to the point where where it's it's well, yeah, but it's also it's turning that
Mary: Yeah, I mean, that's Deadpool.
E Dollar Sign: into satire, which is the first step in the death of a genre. ah So obviously the the reason I bring this up is like vlogs um went out of style like 10 years ago, right?
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: But now there is something happened where enough time has passed or somebody did it in just a new way where it catches the right wave and is starting to come back up again.
Mary: Yeah.
E Dollar Sign: And that's a really interesting thing.
Mary: Yeah, it is a hundred percent a trend and I am on board for it. No, I mean I
E Dollar Sign: She's like, low rise jeans are back baby, let's go.
Mary: Think I think because I never I Think it's because I never Got into YouTube like I never really watched YouTube channels until I think during COVID actually That's when I got like super bored and was at home.
pjasper: Low -rise kimonos, Eric.
Mary: It's like alright get into it and and I had never seen vlogs that had interested me before and like this style so I'm absolutely the audience of like people who never knew this past trend and like like oh wow it's so cool and new now but yeah
E Dollar Sign: Interesting. Okay. All right. Uh, Paul, what makes you happy buddy?
pjasper: Yeah, so ah you know one of the things I noticed this morning, and I was, again, I'll talk about my boyfriend who I was talking to this morning. One of the things I reflected to him,
E Dollar Sign: That your relationship with him is really escalated this episode. I don't know if he's aware of that.
pjasper: as Well, it has been escalating over the past few months, but we talk nearly every day. right One of the things I reflected to him this morning is that staying in a good mindset about being appreciative and not feeling the rat race and feeling gratitude and just feeling that peace and calm and that centeredness, it takes work.
pjasper: It takes daily work. I don't necessarily wake up there. Some days it's like fucking gray and raining out and I'm like, I'm just like not feeling it.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah. yeah
pjasper: And I want to be there. I want to be in that like centered. you know, fulfilled moment of like, feeling like empathy towards humans and like, you know, you know what I'm talking about.
pjasper: You just want that good feeling in your body, right in your heart and your body.
E Dollar Sign: as
pjasper: And it's like, you actually have to do work to get there. And then that begs the question, well, what do you do to get that good feeling if you're not there when you wake up in the morning?
pjasper: And of course, the first
Mary: Drugs.
pjasper: I was gonna say, the first answer is caffeine, right? Of course, right?
E Dollar Sign: Those aren't the drugs she's talking about.
pjasper: Well, those are the drugs I'm talking about. Like a vitamin D, a like a little caffeine.
Mary: Happy drugs.
E Dollar Sign: Jesus Christ. This is a PG show, Mary.
pjasper: But um I realized that by, you know and then we had this this long conversation about you know form and figured woods and function.
E Dollar Sign: so
pjasper: And like after about an hour of like some back and forth, I was there. I was like feeling like, oh man, art's so cool. like Think about this balance and how we strike that balance in every project.
pjasper: And Eric, you were saying, we don't know where we are in that balance in the middle of the project.
E Dollar Sign: Mm.
pjasper: Boy, that just like kind of lit me up. I was just like feeling good. So that's one of the things like just having friends who I can talk to about like cool things like that. It just makes me feel better in general every day. And the other thing is a new thing for me. So I became friends with this guy, Phil. So Phil recently invited me to give a talk at Lexington Arts, which is a makerspace in Lexington, Mass. And Phil's a volunteer there. And Phil's new to woodworking.
pjasper: and very new to woodworking, maybe a year or two. And he is ah watching him go through the love affair with woodworking.
E Dollar Sign: Ooh.
pjasper: like he just is Like he's discovering hand tools. He's right in it. He's like, I bought my third plane. What should I get for my fourth plane? He's like, I tried that plane. It's amazing.
pjasper: He made his first dovetail box this week. And just watching the joy through him vicariously has brought me joy. Like it reminds me of what it's like when you you make that first hand cut dovetail box and you're like, son of a bitch, I did it.
E Dollar Sign: Mmhmm. Mmhmm.
pjasper: I did it with hand tools. And he's like lit on fire. He went on vacation with his wife like a day ago and he's like, obviously I can't bring the shop with me but I'm gonna design my next piece and he's bringing like books to read and just seeing that
E Dollar Sign: Oh, that obsession.
pjasper: right? Just seeing that in someone else reminds you of the fire that that that you feel for this craft.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah, yeah.
pjasper: And that has, I mean, honestly, just watching his enjoyment, his like love of it, and like texting with him and like, Oh, maybe you maybe should check this out or maybe you should check that out.
pjasper: And he's like, it's all excited. Watching that joy has brought me joy.
E Dollar Sign: You know, ah that makes me, I wanna add an addendum to my answer. And this is a positive seg, so we're just gonna add more positivity on top. um I had a moment like that the other day, and I don't get a lot of those moments anymore, right? like We've talked about chasing the dragon, plenty on this show. ah And it's very rare at this point that there is something that I do or something that I ah buy or bring into the shop that gets me like excited the way that I was excited early on when like I got a new toy, got a new tool. And I went out to the Hearn open house on Friday. And my amazing friend Leslie Webb was there who who runs Heartwood tools and is a seller of H and &T Gordon planes.
E Dollar Sign: And I have had one H and &T Gordon plane for a decade. It was a gift. It's a dado plane. It's one of the prettiest tools I own. And I have wanted their smoother plane for 10 years.
Mary: Oh, nice.
E Dollar Sign: And I've never, I've never let myself do it. Cause I have like four number fours. I have a handful of number fives. Like there's no reason for me to have it. And like, I was just sitting there talking to her and it was one of those moments where I was like, you know what?
E Dollar Sign: I can buy this thing. that I've wanted for a decade and I can support my friend's business doing it. And so so I pulled the trigger and I brought it home and guys, it was like It was like Christmas as a kid again. Like I was opening it and I was like, I legitimately worked myself up into like a holy shit. I can't believe I get to have this thing now. And I put it together, I sharpened it up. And I will say this, it's a fucking delight to use. It is it is worth the 10 year wait. It was amazing. But it's like, it was ah even as I was in that moment, I was like, I haven't felt this way about a woodworking tool.
E Dollar Sign: I don't know. Like since before I went to CFC, maybe like there's just not a lot of those moments anymore. And it was really, it was great to be in that moment and recognizing that that moment was happening at the same time.
pjasper: That's great.
Mary: Is that one a push or pull plane?
pjasper: Eric, I love that.
E Dollar Sign: Yes.
pjasper: Pull.
Mary: It could be both.
E Dollar Sign: It can't, it can't be both, but yeah, it's, it's more pull than push.
Mary: Okay. Okay.
E Dollar Sign: Yeah.
pjasper: All right, good juju kids. That was nice. I like that. Eric, I love that. And you're right. It comes at the more experience you get, the more infrequent the moments are. So you like treasure them when they actually do hit. All right. On that note, what we're going to do in the after show, I'll tell you that right now. If you're, if you, um, support us on Patreon, you get the after show. And what we're going to talk about in the after show is where we get our figured woods from is specifically, cause they're kind of hard to find.
pjasper: And so we're going to go through like where we source them specifically, uh, and give you the names. And then we're going to talk about the shittiest wood we've ever bought. but I can't wait to talk about that.
E Dollar Sign: Oh, yeah.
pjasper: And what a waste of money that was.
E Dollar Sign: Oh, yeah.
pjasper: All right. So that's on tap for the after show. But before we sign off, I want to thank our most recent patrons, Lee Wheeler, Tai who Jonathan sick, Andrew, they, he Mike Smith, David, and.
E Dollar Sign: Oh,
pjasper: what sounds like a law firm, Juan Gabriel Freire Lopez.
E Dollar Sign: hell yeah. That's a power name right there.
pjasper: if you're If you don't own a law firm, you should because I'm pretty sure there's an accident victim waiting for you.
E Dollar Sign: or just open an LLC and people will call you assuming that you're a lawyer.
pjasper: All right, kids. Well, we hope you had enjoyed our discussion today on balancing form function sorry excuse me function first, Eric.
pjasper: Function, form, and surface decoration and how to balance them and some of the concerns of using figured woods. And with that, we will see you in your kimono in the after show.
Mary: Oh no!
E Dollar Sign: i'll be in a kimono okay by
Mary: Oh no!
pjasper: Bye.
E Dollar Sign: I'll be in a kimono, okay, bye.
